Paper Summary
A first-ever five-vessel towed streamer configuration with all vessels participating in a simultaneous shooting scheme is presented that delivers uniformly-sampled offset-azimuth bin populations. With a maximum offset of 16 km, the survey has been designed to illuminate all potential targets below extensive and rugose salt cover in the Garden Banks and Keathley Canyon areas of the Gulf of Mexico, including ultra-deep sub-salt plays such as the BP Tiber discovery. TTI RTM anisotropic pre-stack depth imaging of both primary and surface multiple seismic events is facilitated by true wavefield separation of dual-sensor streamer data. The latter imaging pursuit, separated wavefield imaging (SWIM) exploits subsurface sampling (illumination) substantially more dense and spatially-extensive than traditional primaries-only imaging as each of the 13,000 receivers associated with each shot become secondary sources. 18 second continuous recording will ensure several orders of multiples are recorded from all target depths. Ghost-free acquisition will also improve deep sub-salt signal penetration, whilst simultaneously providing the broadest bandwidth data required for shallow geohazard imaging.