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0.0
Time (s)
Reflection
0.1
Air Wave
Reflection
Ground
Roll
0.2
Noisy
Trace
Noisy
Trace
Noisy
Trace
Figure 2.5 A first examination of the Kansas data, with some phases identified.
A first look at a typical shot gather (unprocessed) from the Kansas data (Fig. 2.5) shows
several distinct features. First, noisy traces are evident (see Section 2.3.1). The second
prominent feature is the high-amplitude ground roll. Ground roll, which in vertical-component P17
wave seismic data is typically composed of Rayleigh waves, is identified by two main
characteristics. First, ground roll has a slow phase velocity (steep slope). Wave-equation
physics constrains the propagation velocity of Rayleigh waves as being slower than the
direct S-wave, which in turn must be slower than direct P-waves. The propagation velocity
of ground roll for a Poissons ratio of 1/4 is 54% of the P-wave velocity for a homogeneous,
isotropic medium.
The second characteristic of ground roll is that it is dispersive (i.e., shingled or ringy). Ground
roll propagates along the surface, and the depth of material affected is directly dependent on
the frequency of the ground roll. The high-frequency component of the ground roll interacts
with the very-near-surface material, whereas lower-frequency ground roll interacts with deeper
material as well as with shallow material. Therefore, ground roll will be dispersive when the
near-surface velocity structure is variable with depth (typically increasing with depth)
because different frequencies of ground roll will travel with varying velocities, depending on
the particular average velocity being sampled.
The third characteristic of ground roll is that it typically has a lower dominant frequency than
near-surface refractions or reflections. Ground roll has a different frequency-dependent rate of
attenuation than S-waves or P-waves. Therefore, for a given propagating distance, the highfrequency component of ground roll is attenuated much faster than the P-wave reflections or
refrations and is recorded with a lower frequency content.
The final two important features to identify are coherent noise and reflections. These will be
discussed in the Pitfalls
section.
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England Data
Trace Number
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0.0
0.0
Reflection(?)
Refraction
Reflection(?)
Time (sec)
Reflection
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
Air
Wave
Noisy
Trace
A first look at a typical unprocessed shot gather from the England data (Figure 2.6) shows
features similar to the Kansas data (noisy traces and strong reflections), but it also shows a
very strong refracted arrival and air wave. The air wave is a typical problem in shallow
reflection data (see Section 2.3.2) and is identified because its velocity will always be 330 to
340 m/s (with variations due to elevation, air pressure, temperature, and wind). Because of
the differences between the Kansas and England data, special considerations during
processing will be necessary. The most critical step for both, however, is correctly identifying
the reflections.
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When first examining data, the initial step is to identify the main features (described for both
example data sets above). The next step is to examine the data using various filters and
gains to get a sense of features that might not be obvious on the raw data and to determine
the frequency content of the signal (which will be useful when resampling; see Section 2.2.2).
Following are several panels of the same field file from the Kansas data with various filters and
gains applied, demonstrating the importance of this step.
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Trace Number
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AGC Gain
Gain + Med.-Pass Filter
0.1
Time (s)
0.0
Figure 2.7 Various filters and gains applied to a single field file from the Kansas data.
The top-left panel is the same raw, unprocessed data shown in Fig. 2.6. The top-right panel
is unfiltered data with an AGC gain applied. The remaining panels have the same AGC gain
applied, but with different band-pass filters. Details of the newly observed features are
shown in Fig. 2.8. Note the frequency content of the noisy traces.
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Trace Number
1
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80
90
Time (s)
0.0
0.1
0.2
Refraction
Reflection
Air Wave
Direct Wave
1st Multiple
Reflection
Ground Roll
Figure 2.8 Field file from the Kansas data with detailed identification of phases after filtering
and gaining. The field file and processing are identical to Fig. 2.7, right-center panel. The
source pulse in this data appears as a doublet (i.e., two positive peaks per phase), and the first
peak is picked for interpretation. This is most evident on the direct wave, reflection, and
refraction, and with reversed polarity in the first multiple reflection.
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Refracti
Apparent Aliased
Air Wave Velocity
Reflecti
Figure 2.9 Example seismic data showing aliasing of air wave. The true velocity of the
air wave is fairly slow (steep slope), but the aliasing of the air wave yields events with an
apparent velocity closer to that of the reflection (aliased slope).
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The key to muting is removing the portion of data in which S/N is much lower than S/N of the
rest of the data. For example, Figure 2.10 shows that the removal of information with the noise
cone where S/N is low can significantly enhance S/N of the data, even if the mute region
represents a significant portion of the data volume.
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-228
88
0.0
0.0
Time (sec)
REFRACTION MUTE
NOISE
CONE
MUTE
0.1
0.1
Figure 2.10 An example from Baker et al., 1998 of shallow seismic data in which all of the
information within the noise cone is degraded by air wave of the same frequency content as the
reflections and thus was muted. Additionally, refractions were muted.
The result of muting such a large portion of the data can be surprising (Figure 2.11). Note that
although some reflection information was included in the muted region, S/N of the muted region
was too low to contribute any important information. Thus, following a conservative approach
to avoid contaminating the final stacked section by coherent noise, the processor could
attempt to mute all regions with low S/N, even if it includes a significant portion of the data.
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Processed
Time (sec)
0.0
0.05
0.10
Processed plus
noise-cone mute
Time (sec)
0.0
0.05
0.10
Data contained in
noise-cone mute
Time (sec)
0.0
0.05
0.10
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Trace number
Time (sec)
10
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10
20
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
Before Mute
After Mute
Figure 2.12 A preprocessed shot gather from the England data before and after
muting the air wave and refractions. The mute taper length is 8 ms. The two noisy traces
(2 & 17) were also muted. The data are displayed with AGC (40-ms window) and a bandpass frequency filter (250-300 Hz with 12 dB/octave slopes). Note that a portion of the
reflection at ~35 ms was muted at farther offsets. However, that portion of the reflection
interferes with the first-arriving refraction and thus has a distorted shape that would
degrade the stacking quality.
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Kansas Data
Muting coherent noise within the Kansas data was accomplished with only one top-mute per
record. As previously mentioned, air wave propagates at a velocity of ~335 m/s. At the
Kansas site, the near-surface unconsolidated material had a P-wave propagation velocity
slower than the air wave. The reflection energy of interest, therefore, occurs below the air
wave (examine Fig. 2.12 as a comparison). Thus, the coherent noise to be muted consisted
of refractions, direct wave, and air wave, and is located above the reflection of interest. Figure
2.13 shows a preprocessed common-midpoint gather before muting, during the mute-picking
process, and after muting.
10
Trace Number
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30
40
Preprocessed
Time (s)
0.0
0.1
Mute Pick
Time (s)
0.0
0.1
Muted Record
Time (s)
0.0
0.1
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74
0.0
Time (s)
Low-frequency
stacked
refractions
0.1
High-frequency
stacked aliased
air wave
High-frequency
stacked
air wave
0.2
Figure 2.14 The England data processed without muting air wave or refractions.
The stacked, aliased airwave is moveout related and observed on low-fold CMP gathers.
Figure 2.14 shows the significant effects of not muting the coherent energy (compare with the
muted result, Fig. 1.5). Refractions stack to form coherent events. One hint that refractions
are being stacked is than frequency does not decrease with depth (i.e., low-frequency events
are seen earlier than higher frequency reflections) as one would expect with normal frequencydependent attenuation. Also, note the presence of coherent and incoherent air-wave noise.
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