The diminishing residual matrices method for surface-consistent statics — A review

Abstract

The diminishing residual matrices (DRM) method can be used to surface-consistently decompose individual trace statics into source and receiver components. The statics to be decomposed may either be first-arrival times after the application of linear moveout associated with a consistent refractor as used in refraction statics or residual statics obtained by crosscorrelating individual traces with corresponding model traces (known as pilot traces) at the same common-midpoint (CMP) location. The DRM method is an iterative process like the well-known Gauss-Seidel (GS) method, but it uses only source and receiver terms. The DRM method differs from the GS method in that half of the average common shot and receiver terms are subtracted simultaneously from the observations at each iteration. DRM makes the under-constrained statics problem a constrained one by implicitly adding a new constraint, the equality of the contribution of shots and receivers to the solution. The average of the shot statics and the average of the receiver statics are equal in the DRM solution. The solution has the smallest difference between shot and receiver statics profiles when the number of shots and the number of receivers in the data are equal. In this case, it is also the smallest norm solution. The DRM method can be derived from the well-known simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique. Simple numerical tests as well as results obtained with a synthetic data set containing only the field statics verify that the DRM solution is the same as the linear inverse theory solution. Both algorithms can solve for the long-wavelength component of the statics if the individual picks contain them. Yet DRM method is much faster. Application of the method to the normal moveout-corrected CMP gathers on a 3D land survey for residual statics calculation found that pick-decompose-apply-stack stages of the DRM method need to be iterated. These iterations are needed because of time and waveform distortions of the pilot traces due to the individual trace statics. The distortions lessen at every external DRM iteration.