Surface Multiple Attenuation Through Sparse Inversion – Attenuation Results for Complex Synthetics and Real Data

We present new results of the recently introduced multiple attenuation through sparse inversion approach (van Groenestijn and Verschuur, 2009). This method aims at attenuating surface multiples of all periodicities without the need for an adaptive subtraction or a near-offset extrapolation. The aim of our paper is twofold. First, we demonstrate the viability of the sparse inversion approach on two complex 2D synthetic data sets, showing that sparse inversion may serve as a powerful tool to attenuate short and long-period multiples in complex settings. We additionally illustrate that the resulting primary estimations match the synthetically modelled ones. Second, we apply the 2D sparse inversion approach to a 2D line of a real 3D deep-marine data set. We observe that the estimated multiples exhibit a time shift compared to the true ones, leading to a degraded multiple attenuation. In a further synthetic study we demonstrate that, as expected, this time shift is induced by the presence of cross-line dip. Our observations confirm the necessity of a full 3D approach in order for the sparse inversion method to be effective in practice.