ET – a slant-stack transform of three dimensional data

The application of the discrete Radon transform for plane wave decomposition by the method of slant-stacking or tau-p transformation, is well researched for in-line two dimensional (2D) seismic data recording, and is frequently used to filter events which mask useful seismic data.

In three dimensional (3D) land seismic recording, the swath recording technique causes direct arrivals to be recorded at similar, if not identical, times to the desired reflections. If such arrivals are of identical frequency, the recorded data cannot be readily separated, which results in data which cannot be used in further processing.

This paper introduces a transformation approach to 3D data. The transform is an extension of the 2D slant-stack approach and is the correct application for stacking three-dimensionally recorded data since it sums along radial trajectories. The transform allows further processing of seismic data in the conventional tau-p domain, as well as offset dependent filtering of individual swath records. Offset dependent filtering offers a new dimension in tau-p domain filtering.