Unconstrained simultaneous source land data processing

In the past few years, significant effort has been put into developing land acquisition field techniques that can improve production performance, reduce acquisition cost and increase seismic data quality. In 2010, Saudi Aramco conducted a high productivity, unconstrained, simultaneous source acquisition field test. A fixed, active super-spread continuously recorded 18 single vibrators operating simultaneously in 18 separate quadrants. The test employed high source density, unique up-sweep lengths and spatial source separation to maximize the seismic data quality and minimize the effects of crosstalk. This test achieved an optimum productivity rate of 45,000 vibrator points (VP) per 24 hours with real time QC. In this paper, we demonstrate that the conventional processing techniques produced acceptable images despite noise interference or crosstalk. In addition, we illustrate suitable deblending processing workflows and algorithms for attenuating source interference noise. The objective of the deblending processing is to attenuate random uncompressed crosstalk and to improve the resolution of the prestack migrated time image. Finally, comparisons with legacy 3D seismic data acquired over the same area are depicted. This paper reviews how this unique integration of data acquisition and deblending processing yields a superior seismic image.