2D CO CRS Imaging for Multicomponent Data Recorded by the VSP Geometry

In this paper a new sophisticated design for a processing sequence to deal with prestack data recorded with the vertical seismic profile (VSP) acquisition geometry will be introduced.<br>The approach is based on assumptions and approximations valid for the Common-Reflection-Surface (CRS) stack theory, in particular on the extension to common-offset (CO) imaging firstly derived by Zhang et al. (2001). CRS-stack-based imaging bears the significant advantages of an increased signal-to-noise ratio, a high degree of automation throughout the processing and convenient quality control by the user. Additionally to the high-quality stacked sections the processing by the means of CRS technology yields traveltime parameters related to so-called kinematic wavefield attributes. These CRS attributes can serve as an input to imaging steps beyond stacking as, i.e., velocity modeling and migration. Recently, there have been great efforts by Boelsen (2005) to even extract PP- and PS-conversions immanent in multicomponent data, in order to separate both types of wavefield. The presented approach can also be applied to these issues.