Determining Infill Specifications Based on Geophysical Criteria

During marine seismic acquisition, areas of deficient coverage can arise. If these deficient areas are sufficiently large to be considered outside the specifications, additional infill lines must be acquired. It is desirable that this infill acquisition be targeted such that the additional acquisition requirements are minimised whilst maintaining adequate data quality.<br><br>This study provides a method for predicting the effects of coverage holes on the migrated image on a case-by-case basis. Synthetic modelling followed by pre-stack time migration is used to quantify these effects for the particular model and targets of interest. These results may then be used to assess infill requirements based on a permitted level of data degradation. Such modelling can be performed at the pre-survey planning stage, thus allowing infill considerations to be taken into account during the survey design process.