f Seismic acquisition with a slant cable: Sigsbee Scarp Area, Gulf of Mexico

Exploring for hydrocarbons in areas of complex salt tectonics in the marine environment is a difficult problem. In some cases, potential oil and gas reservoirs lie beneath massive salt bodies. Imaging the subsalt features with traditional seismic methods is not very successful because of the attenuation of high frequencies in salt. Low frequencies fair better for deeper penetration in the ground, but their amplitude is very small. However, the low frequency amplitude increases as the depth of the hydrophones increases. This is due to the influence of the ghosting operator in such a way that the ghosting notch occurs at lower frequencies. In order to preserve the high frequency information as well as boost the low frequencies, the slant cable technology has been used in the oil industry, albeit in a limited way. The idea involves towing a cable that has a series of hydrophones at various depths in the water. The depth of the hydrophones linearly increases with offset. Current technology limits receiver depth to about 50 m .