Piceance 3C 3D Survey - Processing of Converted-wave Data in an Area with Azimuthal Anisotropy

The impact of the data processing flow on converted-wave imaging and azimuthal anisotropy (HTI) analysis is investigated based on a high fold 3D 3C survey recently acquired in Colorado, USA. The processing flows with HTI compensation lead to substantial image improvement. In addition, pre-stack time migration results in higher PS image quality than a post-stack migration approach. Early pre-stack PS1 and PS2 mode separation enables more accurate velocity model building and more effective signal processing. The HTI models built using PoSTM and PreSTM data have similar trends, but the magnitudes and lateral details of the anomalies are sufficiently different to potentially result in different interpretations.