Paper Summary
In simultaneous source acquisition, seismic data can be recorded with a temporal overlap between the shots. Better sampled data in terms of source spacing, azimuth and/or offset distributions can be obtained in a much more efficient way. These potential benefits can only be realized if the recorded data, with interfering energy from multiple sources, can be handled properly. Common practice is to apply randomized time-delays to the sources during the acquisition of the data. As a result of using randomized firing schemes, coherency measures can be utilized to actively separate the recorded data over the individual sources. In this paper an inversion-based source separation method is utilized to a shallow water data set which may have specific challenges compared to deeper water applications. We will focus a bit more on the randomized firing schemes. It is shown that optimizing these firing schemes, introducing pseudo randomization, instead of using random time-delays, can benefit the performance of the source separation. The separation method is illustrated using a controlled simultaneous source experiment where a shallow water field data set is used to mimic simultaneous recorded data where two sources were located with only a small cross line distance between them (simultaneous FLIP/FLOP acquisition). Results demonstrate that it is advised to utilize pseudo randomization of the firing delay-times. The controlled shallow water field data example shows that good separation results are obtained.