The utilization of ghost reflections retrieved by seismic interferometry for layer‐specific characterization of the shallow subsurface

Abstract

Seismic interferometry (SI) retrieves the Green function between two receiver locations using their recordings from a boundary of sources. When using sources and receivers only at the surface, the virtual‐source gathers retrieved by SI contain pseudo‐physical reflections as well as ghost (non‐physical) reflections. These ghost reflections are the results of the cross‐correlation or auto‐correlation (AC) of primary reflections from two different depth levels, and they contain information about the seismic properties of specific layers in the subsurface. We investigated the application of ghost reflections for layer‐specific characterization of the shallow subsurface using SI by AC. First, we showed the technique's potential using synthetic data for a subsurface model with a lateral change in velocity, a gradient in depth for velocity, a thickness change and a velocity change of the target layer. Then, we applied the technique to shallow subsurface field data. We also focused on improving the retrieval of ghost reflections by removing the free‐surface multiples and muting undesired events in active‐source gathers before applying SI. Our results demonstrate that the ghost reflections can be used advantageously to characterize the layer that causes them to appear in the results of SI. Consequently, they can also provide valuable information for imaging and monitoring shallow subsurface structures.