Crystal - A Wide Azimuth Towed Streamer Program - Acquisition Design Analysis

High quality sub-salt imaging has remained a challenge for the seismic industry over the last two decades. In the marine environment depth migration of long offset (in-line) data has proven quite successful. Recent modeling has shown Regone (2006) that increased cross-line offset can improve the image quality significantly. It improves illumination and attenuates multiple energy in difficult sub-salt imaging environments, see Regone (2006) and Keggin (2002). It is well known that stationary receiver systems like vertical cables or OBC offer an acquisition solution adequate for solving the above mentioned challenges. However, due to the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the streamer method we can now achieve the same survey objectives with conventional streamer technology. This new Towed Streamer Wide Azimuth method represents however, new challenges in terms of survey design, acquisition methodology and operation. An incremental tile style acquisition offers a flexible, robust and well suited solution in terms of coverage and infill. In this paper we discuss these aspects in the context of a large scale wide azimuth exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico.