Utilization of ambient noise seismic interferometry to retrieve P‐wave reflections at Soma coal basin, Western Turkey

Abstract

AbstractFollowing ambient noise seismic interferometry principles, we retrieved virtual zero‐offset vertical seismic profile shot gather using continuous seismic records obtained simultaneously during an active‐source data acquisition study from Soma coal basin, Western Turkey. We treated the data to include pure ambient noise by eliminating earthquakes, surface sweeps and quarry explosions due to mining activities. We have implemented a series of data processing steps, including spectral normalization and filtering to increase the signal‐to‐noise ratio. We produced a zero‐offset virtual shot gather by cross‐correlation and cross‐coherence methods in a coal basin for the first time and we observed the P‐wave first arrivals and reflections from the deepest coal layer (km2). Our results demonstrate that the ambient noise seismic interferometry method can serve as an alternative approach for seismic imaging and monitoring in areas where the use of active seismic sources is limited due to field conditions, provided that there are sufficient and appropriate noise sources at the wellhead.