Evaluation of PP and PS binning for a multicomponent seismic survey from west-central Alberta

Hussain Aldhaw, Donald C. Lawton

A multicomponent seismic survey undertaken recently in west-central Alberta is evaluated for PP and PS binning methods. A 50 km2 subset of the real survey was selected for analysis and subsequent processing. A major step in seismic processing is binning and deciding on the optimum bin size, especially for PS data. One of the common methods is ACP (Asymptotic Common Point), because it requires only an average Vp/Vs ratio and the binning is independent of the depth of the target horizon.

The simulated design is used to test for the optimum ACP binning parameters. It was designed based on the acquisition parameters of the real survey, and on the analysis made on the synthetic data set. A synthetic seismogram was created by convolving well log reflectivity data (from Vp, Vs and density logs) from a nearby well with a wavelet that represents the data. The reflection amplitudes and transmission losses are calculated using the Zoeppritz equations. Maximum useable offset was chosen based on the actual survey geometry for the depth of interest. Then it was used for the simulated survey design to evaluate the fold and offset distribution for both PP and PS datasets of the field survey.