Taking Advantage of Surface-related Multiples in Seismic Acquisition Design

The image quality to be obtained from a seismic acquisition geometry can be assessed quantitatively by the so-called focal beam method. So far, this method makes use of the primary wavefield only. However, the subsurface is not only illuminated by the primary wavefield but also by the secondary wavefield as generated by surface-related multiples. We extended the focal beam method to include the information from surface-related multiples as well. The extra information is related to angles of illumination that were missing in the primary wavefield.