So-called “Popcorn shooting”, and especially continuous Popcorn shooting, combined with simultaneous source shooting allows considerable flexibility in producing high-resolution data and in creating source arrays. Using a combination of simultaneous source de-blending and Popcorn reconstruction it is possible to construct using post acquisition processing arrays of any desired length by constructing a popcorn pattern that takes into account the vessel speed and physical arrangement of guns behind the towing vessel.

A method to generate a tube wave in a tubular system involves reciprocating a plunger in a chamber system to alternatingly increase and decrease net volume, drawing fluid from and returning the fluid to a tubular system and into and from the chamber system, to generate a tube wave, and guiding the tube wave to the tubular system. Also, a tube wave generator-sensor system has a chamber system, a plunger, a driver to reciprocate the plunger within the chamber system to generate a tube wave, a flow passage to guide the tube wave into a tubular system, and a sensor to receive the tube wave signal and/or response from the tubular system. The method and system can work with or without a firing valve and or accumulator, without adding or subtracting fluid from the tubular system.

Systems, methods, and apparatuses for generating a subsurface image using diffraction energy information are disclosed. The systems, methods, and apparatuses may include converting a shot gather into one or more plane-wave gather using a Radon transform. The plane-wave gathers may be extrapolated into source-side wavefields and receiver-side wavefields and further generate a pseudo dip-angle gather. The diffraction energy information may be extracted from the pseudo dip-angle gather, and an image containing subsurface features may be generated from the extracted diffraction energy information. The receiver-side wavefields may be decomposed using a recursive Radon transform.

Presented are methods and systems for collecting marine seismic data. The collected seismic data can be low frequency (e.g., less than 10 Hz) or it can be a full seismic bandwidth (1-200 Hz) depending on if the low frequency tuned sources and tuned receivers are combined with conventional sources and receivers. The low frequency sources can be towed or they can be autonomous and positioned in the survey area by tether, drifting or self-propelled. The tuned low frequency receivers are towed at a depth greater than conventional receivers and the sources can be fired independently or simultaneously.

A method includes receiving, via a processor, input data based upon received seismic data, migrating, via the processor, the input data via a pre-stack depth migration technique to generate migrated input data, encoding, via the processor, the input data via an encoding function as a migration attribute to generate encoded input data having a migration function that is non-monotonic versus an attribute related to the input data, migrating, via the processor, the encoded input data via the pre-stack depth migration technique to generate migrated encoded input data, and generating an estimated common image gather based upon the migrated input data and the migrated encoded input data. The method also includes generating a seismic image utilizing the estimated common image gather, wherein the seismic image represents hydrocarbons in a subsurface region of the Earth or subsurface drilling hazards.

Imperfect separation at the higher frequencies has been observed and was eventually was tracked down to the poor GFE signal that is normally used in the inversion. The invention thus uses a “derived GFE” for each source, obtained by comparing the shot records and remove the differences, instead of the prior estimated GFE signal put out by the controller, thus accurately maximizing the separation of the data.

Method for acquiring, at reduced acquisition cost, seismic data using simultaneous, field-encoded sources in the field (702), and then constructing pseudo source-records (703) that better meet the requirements for using additional simultaneous computer-encoded sourcing for computer simulations or forward modeling (706) as part of (707) iterative FWI (Full Wavefield Inversion) or RTM (Reverse Time Migration), with additional reduction in computational costs. By better meeting the requirements of simultaneous sourcing for FWI or RTM (701), artifacts and crosstalk are reduced in the output. The method can be used for marine streamer acquisition and other non-fixed spread geometries to acquire both positive and negative offsets and to mitigate the “missing data” problem for simultaneous-source FWI. It can also be used for land data to overcome issues with moving spreads and long continuous records.

A method for obtaining zero-offset and near zero offset seismic data from a marine survey, with separation of direct arrival information and reflectivity information, the method including: modeling a direct arrival estimate at a passive near-field hydrophone array by using a notional source separation on active near-field hydrophone data; generating reflection data for the passive near-field hydrophone array by subtraction of the modeled direct wave from data recorded by the passive near-field hydrophone array; generating near zero-offset reflectivity traces by stacking the reflection data for the passive near-field hydrophone array on a string-by-string basis or on a combination of strings basis; generating reflectivity information at the active near-field hydrophone array by subtracting the direct arrival estimate modeled using the notional source separation from the active near-field hydrophone data; and generating an estimate of zero-offset reflectivity traces by calculating a cross-correlation between the between the reflectivity information at the active near-field hydrophone array and the near zero-offset traces and performing an optimized stacking with summation weights based on coefficients of the cross-correlation.

Systems and methods of near surface imaging and hazard detection with increased receiver spacing are provided. The system includes: a first string of one or more acoustic sources, a second string of one or more acoustic sources opposite the first string, a first one or more hydrophones mounted within a predetermined distance of the first string, and a second one or more hydrophones mounted within the predetermined distance of the second string. The first one or more hydrophones records an acoustic shot generated from the first string. The second one or more hydrophones records the acoustic shot and acoustic reflections corresponding to the acoustic shot. The system generates an image from the recorded acoustic shot and the acoustic reflections.

Systems and methods of placing wells in a hydrocarbon field based on seismic attributes and quality indicators associated with a subterranean formation of the hydrocarbon field can include receiving seismic attributes representing the subterranean formation and seismic data quality indicators. A cutoff is generated for each seismic attribute and seismic data quality indicator. A weight is assigned to each seismic attribute and seismic data quality indicator. The weighted seismic attributes and data quality indicators are aggregated for each location in the hydrocarbon field. A risk ranking is assigned based on the weighted seismic attributes and data quality indicators associated with each location in the hydrocarbon field based on the cutoffs. A map is generated with each location on the surface of the subterranean formation color-coded based on its assigned risk ranking.