Exploring the Extent to which Streamer Separation Can Be Relaxed when Using a Multimeasurement Streamer

Abstract

Herein, we explore how we can enable increased efficiency in marine seismic acquisition by using the data recorded by a multimeasurement streamer to allow the relaxation of the usual constraints on crossline streamer spacing - thus, obtaining the desired resolution while towing the streamers farther apart. Pressure and pressure-gradient measurements acquired by multimeasurement streamers are used to reconstruct the wavefield between the streamers; this is achieved using the generalized matching pursuit (GMP) algorithm. GMP performs wavefield reconstruction and full 3D receiver-side deghosting using multimeasurement data from the streamers, as described by Robertsson et al. (2008). Although these scenarios can be modelled using synthetic data, it is important to evaluate real seismic data to understand the impact of variables such as acquisition conditions. In this work, we analyse the results from a field test acquired in the North Sea using multimeasurement streamers. In the field test, a line of data was acquired using a 75m cable separation and then repeated using a 100m streamer separation. We consider to what extent we can increase streamer spacing and acquisition efficiency without compromising the spatial resolution, concluding that this experiment supports the case for reconstruction at 100m streamer spacing.