First Break - Volume 13, Issue 9, 1995

The worldwide acceleration in gold exploration activity has created a demand for improved geophysical prospecting procedures to complement the growing knowledge of the geochemistry of gold and its distribution in the Earth's crust. Gold mineralization in Archean granite-greenstone terranes contributes ab ut 15% of the world's gold production presently amounting to approximately 1300 metric tonnes (t) per year (Keays and Skinner 1989). For example, deposits in Western Australia greenstone beits have produced approximately 2100 t of gold (Groves et al. 1984).

Ground roll is the major source of coherent noise on land seismic data. It is current practice to attenuate ground roll through the use of geophone arrays in the field, and by velocity filtering during processing. However, data recorded using multi-component geophones provide an additional means of attenuating the ground roll through polarization filtering. The basis of polarization filtering for roll attenuation is to utilize the phase difference between the components. Body waves are assumed to exhibit linear motion (in phase) whilst ground roll is assumed to exhibit elliptical motion (out of phase).