Reflection-response Retrieval with Seismic Interferometry by Multidimensional Deconvolution from Surface Reflection Data

Seismic interferometry (SI) allows retrieval of virtual-source responses at positions of receivers, where no actual source is shot, by cross-correlating (CC) the seismic responses between receivers. The theory requires a boundary of subsurface sources to retrieve the surface reflection response. With reflection data acquired with both sources and receivers at the Earth’s surface, the retrieved virtual-source reflection responses suffer from non-physical arrivals and amplitude errors that may be significant. Instead of using the common CC method, we propose an approximate method to apply SI by multidimensional deconvolution (MDD). The method is data-driven and does not require a priori information about the subsurface. Numerical results show that, although its effect on the non-physical arrivals is limited, the MDD method clearly improves the retrieved amplitudes by flattening the spectrum and balancing the illumination of the virtual-source responses. Therefore, the virtual-source response retrieved by MDD is a better estimate of the reflection response than the response retrieved by CC. The additional reflection data retrieved by MDD have higher potential of filling in possibly missing source data in the original dataset.