Suppression of strong random noise in seismic data by using time-frequency peak filtering

Abstract

Time-frequency peak filtering (TFPF) is highly efficient in suppressing random noise in seismic data. Although the hypothesis of stationary Gaussian white noise cannot be fulfilled in practical seismic data, TFPF can effectively suppress white and colored random noise with different intensities, as can be theoretically demonstrated by detecting such noise in synthetic seismic data. However, a “zero-drift” effect is observed in the filtered signal and is independent of the average power and variance of the random noise, but related to its mean value. Furthermore, we consider the situation where the local linearization of the seismic data cannot be satisfied absolutely and study the “distortion” characteristics of the filtered signal using TFPF on a triangular wave. We found that over-compensation is possible in the frequency band for the triangular wave. In addition, it is nonsymmetrical and has a relationship to the time-varying curvature of the seismic wavelet. The results also present an improved approach for TFPF.