An approach to optimum slant stack; its application as a seismic noise attenuator

The concept of stacking, data together to form a trace with a signal to noise ratio (S/N) which is better than that of the individual contributors to the stack is not new, and now forms a key step in most seismic processing sequences, namely CDP stack. While not specifically for geophysical applications, Brennan (1955) showed that there is a universal method for computation of stack S/N and indicated how the S/N of the stacked trace could be maximized (the optimum stack). Brennan's method involved sealing of the input data, by application of weights, and he showed how the contributing traces should be weighted in order to achieve optimum stack.