Seismic-interferometric applications for near-surface and mineral exploration

Abstract

Seismic methods are widely used for the exploration of the Earth’s subsurface. While they allow higher resolution compared to other geophysical methods, their performance depends on site and geological characteristics, and the volume and type of recorded information. Additionally, data processing plays a critical role in the efficacy of the application of seismic methods.
A common challenge when utilising seismic methods arises as a result of field restrictions and cost constraints. As a consequence, seismic data often suffer from irregular or sparse spatial sampling, which can affect the application of advanced processing and imaging algorithms, for instance, surface-related multiple elimination and wave equation migration. These algorithms require dense and regular sampling to provide reliable results. Thus, seismic-data regularisation and interpolation are commonly utilised processing steps. Nevertheless, the interpolation of data for relatively large gaps is not trivial, in particular for land data acquired in complex geological settings where the seismic events exhibit pronounced curvature and lack of continuity....