Seismic stacking methods: hyperbolic and non-hyperbolic traveltime approximations

Abstract

The simulation of a zero-offset (ZO) from multicoverage seismic data is one of the main steps of the standard seismic processing. To obtain a ZO seismic trace there are several stacking methods using different kinds of traveltime approximations. The normal-moveout/dip-moveout (NMO/DMO) method is the more known in the geophysical literature. It is based on the stacking of reflection seismic data along a hyperbolic traveltime approximation, which is determined by stacking velocity analysis in the offset domain. To simulate a ZO seismic section there exist different traveltime approximations whose accuracy depends on the offset and reflector curvature. Stacking methods, e.g. Common-Reflection-Surface (CRS) and Multifocusing (MF) extend conventional stacking of seismic traces over offset to multidimensional stacking over offset-midpoint. By using hyperbolic or non-hyperbolic traveltime formulas, these methods depend on three parameters and approximate the kinematic multicoverage reflection response of curved interfaces in heterogeneous medium. We compared four traveltime approximations (hyperbolic and non-hyperbolic) of these methods by using synthetic data. This work shows that the Multifocusing method is significantly more accurate than the other traveltime approximations at larger offsets and at larger midpoint separations while using essentially the same number of parameters.