Source wavelet correction for practical Marchenko imaging: A sub‐salt field‐data example from the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACTImaging a target zone below a salt body can be challenging because large velocity contrasts in the overburden between the salt and surrounding sediments generate internal multiples, which interfere with primary reflections from the target level in the imaging process. This can lead to an erroneous interpretation of reflections in the sub‐salt area if multiples are misinterpreted as primaries. The Marchenko redatuming method may enable imaging of the sub‐salt target area where the effect of the multiply‐scattering overburden is removed. This is achieved by creating a redatumed reflection response where virtual sources and receivers are located below the overburden using a macromodel of the velocity field and the surface reflection data. The accuracy of the redatumed data and the associated internal multiple removal, however, depends on the accurate knowledge of the source wavelet of the acquired reflection data. For the first time, we propose a method which can accurately and reliably correct the amplitudes of the reflection response in field data as required by the Marchenko method. Our method operates by iteratively and automatically updating the source function so as to cancel the most artefact energy in the focusing functions, which are also generated by the Marchenko method.We demonstrate the method on a synthetic dataset and successfully apply it to a field dataset acquired in a deep‐water salt environment in the Gulf of Mexico. After the successful source wavelet estimation for the field dataset, we create sub‐salt target‐oriented images with Marchenko redatumed data. Marchenko images using the proposed source wavelet estimation show clear improvements, such as increased continuity of reflectors, compared to surface‐based images and to conventional Marchenko images computed without the inverted source wavelet. Our improvements are corroborated by evidence in the literature and our own synthetic results.