2,084 research outputs found
Blind Curvelet based Denoising of Seismic Surveys in Coherent and Incoherent Noise Environments
The localized nature of curvelet functions, together with their frequency and
dip characteristics, makes the curvelet transform an excellent choice for
processing seismic data. In this work, a denoising method is proposed based on
a combination of the curvelet transform and a whitening filter along with
procedure for noise variance estimation. The whitening filter is added to get
the best performance of the curvelet transform under coherent and incoherent
correlated noise cases, and furthermore, it simplifies the noise estimation
method and makes it easy to use the standard threshold methodology without
digging into the curvelet domain. The proposed method is tested on
pseudo-synthetic data by adding noise to real noise-less data set of the
Netherlands offshore F3 block and on the field data set from east Texas, USA,
containing ground roll noise. Our experimental results show that the proposed
algorithm can achieve the best results under all types of noises (incoherent or
uncorrelated or random, and coherent noise)
INVERSE ATTENUATION-FILTERING
When seismic waves propagate through the Earth, they are affected by numerous inelastic effects of the medium. These effects are usually characterized by the concept of the Q-factor and lead to variations of spectra of the signal and shapes of the waveforms, which further affect the results of reflection seismic imaging. Attenuation compensation, also often called the inverse Q filtering is a signal-processing procedure broadly used to compensate both of these effects of attenuation in reflection sections or volumes. The objective of this thesis is to present and investigate a new attenuation-compensation approach that is much more general than the conventional inverse Q filtering
Expected seismicity and the seismic noise environment of Europa
Seismic data will be a vital geophysical constraint on internal structure of
Europa if we land instruments on the surface. Quantifying expected seismic
activity on Europa both in terms of large, recognizable signals and ambient
background noise is important for understanding dynamics of the moon, as well
as interpretation of potential future data. Seismic energy sources will likely
include cracking in the ice shell and turbulent motion in the oceans. We define
a range of models of seismic activity in Europa's ice shell by assuming each
model follows a Gutenberg-Richter relationship with varying parameters. A range
of cumulative seismic moment release between and Nm/yr is
defined by scaling tidal dissipation energy to tectonic events on the Earth's
moon. Random catalogs are generated and used to create synthetic continuous
noise records through numerical wave propagation in thermodynamically
self-consistent models of the interior structure of Europa. Spectral
characteristics of the noise are calculated by determining probabilistic power
spectral densities of the synthetic records. While the range of seismicity
models predicts noise levels that vary by 80 dB, we show that most noise
estimates are below the self-noise floor of high-frequency geophones, but may
be recorded by more sensitive instruments. The largest expected signals exceed
background noise by 50 dB. Noise records may allow for constraints on
interior structure through autocorrelation. Models of seismic noise generated
by pressure variations at the base of the ice shell due to turbulent motions in
the subsurface ocean may also generate observable seismic noise.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, Added in supplementary information from
revision submission, including 3 audio files with sonification of Europa
noise records. To view attachments, please download and extract the gzipped
tar source file listed under "Other formats
A self-supervised scheme for ground roll suppression
In recent years, self-supervised procedures have advanced the field of
seismic noise attenuation, due to not requiring a massive amount of clean
labeled data in the training stage, an unobtainable requirement for seismic
data. However, current self-supervised methods usually suppress simple noise
types, such as random and trace-wise noise, instead of the complicated, aliased
ground roll. Here, we propose an adaptation of a self-supervised procedure,
namely, blind-fan networks, to remove aliased ground roll within seismic shot
gathers without any requirement for clean data. The self-supervised denoising
procedure is implemented by designing a noise mask with a predefined direction
to avoid the coherency of the ground roll being learned by the network while
predicting one pixel's value. Numerical experiments on synthetic and field
seismic data demonstrate that our method can effectively attenuate aliased
ground roll.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures
Application of vertical seismic profiling for the characterisation of hard rock
Seismic imaging in hard rock environments is gaining wider acceptance as a mineral exploration technique and as a mine-planning tool. However, the seismic images generated from hard rock targets are complex due to high rock velocities, low contrasts in elastic rock properties, fractionated geology, complicated steep dipping structures and mineralogical alterations. In order to comprehend the complexity and utilise seismic images for structural mapping and rock characterisation, it is essential to correlate these images to known geology. An ideal tool for this purpose is Vertical Seismic Profiling or VSP. The VSP method can provide not only a means to correlate seismic images to geology but also to study the properties of the transmitted seismic field as it is modified by different rock formations, the origin of the reflected events and the corresponding reflector geometry. However, the VSP technique is rarely used in hard rock environments because of the cost and operational issues related to using clamping geophones in exploration boreholes, which are 96 mm or less in diameter. Consequently the main objective of this research is to produce an efficient VSP methodology that can be readily deployed for mineral exploration.An alternative to the clamping geophone is the hydrophone. Hydrophones are suspended in, and acoustically coupled to the borehole wall through, the borehole fluid. Borehole acoustic modes known as "tube-waves" are generated by seismic body waves passing the water column and are guided in the borehole due to the high acoustic impedance contrast between the rock and fluid. Tube-waves are 1-2 orders in magnitude higher in amplitude than seismic signal and mask reflected energy in hydrophone VSP profiles. As such the use of borehole hydrophone arrays to date has been restricted to direct body wave measurements only. I have effectively mitigated tube-waves in hydrophone VSP surveys with specific acquisition methodologies and refined signal processing techniques. The success of wavefield separation of tubewaves from hydrophone data depends critically upon; having high signal to noise ratio, well sampled data, pre-conditioning of the field data and processing in the field record (FFID) domain. Improvements in data quality through the use of high viscosity drilling fluids and baffle systems have been tested and developed. The increased signal to noise ratio and suppression of tube-wave energy through these technologies greatly enhances the performance of hydrophone VSP imaging.Non-standard wavefield separation techniques successfully removed strong coherent tube-wave noise. The additional wavefield separation steps required to remove high amplitude tube-waves does degrade the overall result with some fidelity and coherency being lost. However, a direct comparison of hydrophone and borehole clamping geophone VSP surveys has been conducted in the Kambalda nickel district and the two methodologies produced comparable results. The difference was that the hydrophone data were collected in a fraction of the time compared to clamping geophone equipment with significantly less risk of equipment loss and with reduced cost.The results of these field experiments and the data processing methodology used, demonstrate the potential of hydrophone VSP surveys in the small diameter boreholes typical of hard rock exploration. Thus, these results show that hydrophone VSP is a viable, cost effective and efficient solution that should be employed more routinely in hard rock environments in order to enhance the value of the surface seismic datasets being acquired
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