Multiple Attenuation

Reflection seismic data encounters with various noise. At each phase of the seismic processing/imaging, we must attenuate these noise components to get a better signal to noise ratio and eventually to achieve the best stack response. Among those noise components multiples are one of them. We can't consider them as noise however they play a vital role in masking the subsurface image and degrade the quality of the stack. There are various kinds of multiples present in the raw data viz. Water bottom multiples, peg leg multiples, interbed multiples etc. We can't attenuate all these multiples with a single procedure or module. Each one of them exhibits different characteristics. Based on these characteristics of them, we need to device and choose the appropriate algorithm to attenuate the multiples.

In g-Platform we have various multiple attenuation techniques to address these challenges. In the upcoming sections we are going to discuss each one of them in detail.

Multiples behave differently in different set ups. In the case of onshore data, we mostly observe the interbed multiples where the reflections bounce back within the beds. In the case of offshore data, we experience the ringing of these multiples in shallow environments. In deep waters, we can observe the water bottom multiples, 1st order, 2nd order, interbed, peg leg multiples etc.