Continuous Wavefields Method - a New Marine Seismic Acquisition and Processing Approach

There are several challenges with the conventional 3D marine seismic method that are addressed with a novel seismic methodology based on the emission and recording of continuous source and receiver wavefields. The challenges that are discussed in this paper are coarse spatial sampling of source positions, environmental impact of marine seismic sources, and efficiency of the acquisition. The coarse spatial sampling of source positions is addressed by emitting continuous source wavefields. The environmental impact of marine seismic sources is reduced by spreading the emitted energy out in time. The efficiency of marine seismic acquisition can be improved with the continuous wavefields method because there are no vessel speed limitations caused by the method as such, and because source elements can be distributed crossline in multiple positions improving the coverage in each sail line and hence reducing the number of sail lines needed to cover a certain area.