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Whatever
happmed
ground roll?
to
By NIGEL A. ANSTEY
Geophysical Consultant
Boston, Massachusetts
(Editors Note: In August1985,the SEC;Workshopon Seismic
Field Techniques
washeld in Monterey,CalQornia,underthe
chairmanshipof Dr. Elmer Eisner.This talk wasgivenas the
keynoteaddress;
it is reproduced
substantiallyverbatim.Part 2,
Fieldtechniques
for highresolution,
follows in the next issue
of THE LEADING EDGE.)
40 GEOPHYSICS:
THE LEADING
EDGE OF EXPLORATION
MARCH
1986
So
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goodness!)what you dont know. time and again it happens. You understandthe basicconcepts,you apply the
conclusionsevery day, but when you try to explain it to
somebodyelse- somethingsticks,somethingwont come
out right. So I havelearned much from havingto teach.
Often, I find myself going back, filling in gaps in my
knowledgewhich I shouldhavefilled (and meant to fill)
many years ago.
One suchthing I alwaysmeant to do was to work out
whatactuallyhappensto the groundroll in the stack.Well,
of course,it getsattenuated.But is this a purely random,
statistical,JN- type of attenuation. . . or is there some
systematicorder to it?
The answer- which is my piece of sharingtoday - is
that there is indeed order to it.
You know what happenswheneveryou make what you
think is an announcement.Somebodyjumps up and says,
I thoughtof thatyearsago.No you didnt. YesI did.
No you didnt. Yes I did. Well, there will be none
of that here. What I haveto sayis so obviousthat I cannot
expectthat I am the first personto notice it. Indeed, my
immediatereaction, on noticing it, was one of shamethat it shouldhavetakenthisold ploddersolong to realize
what everybodyelsemusthaveknownsincethe discovery
of fire. Yet, I dont knowof anypublicationof it. Of course,
that couldbe my fault again- for missingit in the literature. But then, I think to myself, how little of what we
actually do is in the literature! And conversely. . . oh
researchers!
howlittle of whatis in the literaturewe actually
do! Then again,this view of how ground roll getsattenuated in the stack leads to a set of criteria for multiple
coveragein the field, and many modern sectionswhich
passacrossmy deskviolate thosecriteria. So maybethe
criteria are not widely known. Anyway, here goes.
Whether its ancienthistory,or hot off the press,here it is.
EDGE OF EXPLORATION
MARCH
1986 41
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time
the physicalarray acrossthe gather is still uniform and
continuous
- its just that, whenwe sumalongthe moveout
hyperbola, the sample of ground roll put into the sum
jumpsforwarda few milliseconds,in time betweengroups.
At the frequenciesof the groundroll, and for the smooth
natureof the NM0 curve,the groundroll remainssubstantially zapped.
Now, all that wasfor an end-on spreadwith sourceinterval equal to half the group interval. Lets consider a
moreusualcasefor landwork - a splitspread,againwith
the grouplengthequalto the groupinterval,but now with
the sourceintervalalso equalto the groupinterval. Then,
in thissituation,it is desirableto shootbetweenthe groups
- not on the flags. Now the fold is only half the number
of channels(Figure 5a). The groups- althoughstill endto-end and continuousin the field (Figure 5b) - are no
longerend-to-endandcontinuousacrossthe gather(Figure
5~). Indeed they are regularly on-off-on-off acrossthe
gather.But then if we look at the other sideof the gather,
we have the sameeffect, but now off-on-off-on. We can
see the effect of stackingthe gather if we flip the lower
side to the upper side (Figure 5d); the offsetsinterleave
to give, onceagain,a continuousevenarray stretchingthe
whole length of one side of the split spread.Again, the
ground roll is rapped.
So both of the spreadgeometriesweve just considered
- the end-on spreadwith sourceinterval half the group
interval,and the split spreadshotbetweenthe groupswith
sourceinterval equalto the group interval - both satisfy
the basicstack-arraycriterion: the multiplecoveragemust
be suchthat there is an even, continuous,uniform successionof geophonesacrossthe gather. Not acrossthe
spread- acrossthe gather. When this is so, the operation of stackingforms a long uniform array the lengthof
the spread, and the ground roll is zapped.
Lets see what happensif we violate this criterion.
42
EDGE OF EXPLORATION
MARCH 1986
Suppose, for example,that we halve the fold. In the endon case,insteadof usinga sourceintervalof half the group
interval, we use a sourceinterval equal to the group interval (Figure6a). (You seelotsof crewsdoingthat.) Then
the stack-array is on-off-on-off all across the gather,
and there is no suppression- no suppressionat all of ground-roll wavelengthsequal to two group intervals
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Figure4. (a) Stackingdiagram for an end-onspread.(h) Endto-end groups shown in the common-sourcedirection. (c)
End-to-endgroupsshownin the common-midpointdirection.
(d) The addition of the gatheredtracesforms the stackarray.
GEOPHYSICS:
THE LEADING
EDGE OF EXPLORATION
MARCH
1986 43
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44
for nothing.)
So,if lotsof crewsareoutthererightnowviolatingthese
criteria,whathappens?
Well. perhapstheresnottoomuch
source-generated
noise,and the resultsare fine anyway.
Perhapsthe noisewavelengths
are short,andshortgroups
are sufficientto attenuate
it - fine again.Butmaybesome
wavelengths
of the noise come right throughthe stack
unattenuated.
and give the appearanceof low-frequency
multipleson thefinal section. . weve all seenthat.Then
theprocessors
do sometestsandfind theresultsare much
better if they apply f-k filtering on the shotrecords,or
if they apply a low-cutfilter. Nobody recognizes
those
spuriouseventsas an error in the designof the multiple
coverage.
Or the processors
seesomeherringboneeffects
on the section(weve all seenthat too). which they find
can be suppressed
by f-k filtering after stack. Again,
nobodyrecognizes
it asan error in thedesignof themultiple coverage.
OK - a few otherpointsaboutthestack-array
approach.
GEOPHYSICS:
THE LEADING
EDGE OF EXPLORATION
MARCH
F.wt. it reallyisquitedistinctanddifferentfromthetraditionalapproach
to arraydesign.In thetraditionalapproach,
thelengthof thearrays(thegroups)is basedon thelongest
apparentwavelength
of thesource-generated
noise.In the
stack-arrayapproach,the lengthof the groupsis just the
groupinterval,whichis half theshortestapparentwave-
1986
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Youknow,whenI cameintothisgame,themajorenemy
of the geophysicist- the devil himself - was called
groundroll. Everywherethe questionwasthe same:what
canwe do aboutgroundroll?Then, with surfacesources,
the groundroll actuallygot worse!But nowadays
- whoevertalksaboutgroundroll?Abouthalfthecrewsoutthere
take no accountof groundroll in their arrays;geophone
frequencies
go lowerandlower,andground-rollfiltersare
very unfashionable.
So whateverhappened
to groundroll?
In the heydayof fancygeophonearrays- Chebyshev
andall that - a wise old man whisperedto me that the
bestthat arrayscould do (howeverfancy)wasto reduce
the groundroll by 15 dB. Say to 20 percent.We agreed
just now that the worstthe stackarraycoulddo - if the
groundroll wasentirelyrandomfrom shotto shot,or indeedif the stack-arraycriterionwasviolatedin any way
- wasto reducethe groundroll by the squareroot of the
fold of stack.At 25fold, therefore,the worst-casestack
array is aboutas goodas traditionalarrays.And that, I
think, is whateverhappenedto groundroll. When we got
to 24-fold, we found- probablyquiteempirically- that
we didnt needlongarraysanymore.But whatwe did not
notice(or at leastwhatI did notnotice)wasthatby walking the extra inch - designingthe multiplecoverageto
satisfythestack-array
criterion- we couldhavedoneeven
better.
Sothereis the stack-arrayapproachto arraydesign.As
I saidearlier, I doubtvery muchwhetherI am the first
to formalizethe stack-arraycriterion. So if you got there
first. 15yearsago, be my guest- feel free to claim it.
But then, be preparedto be outdoneby the guy who got
there 25 yearsago.And, of course,theresalwaysHarry
Mayne,whosethinkingmayhavegotthisfar 35 yearsago.
As always,Harry is hard to beat.
NigelA. Anstey hasparticipated in all facets of the Seismic exploration method. Following his graduationfrom the University
of Bristolin England in 1948, he worked for SeismographService Ltd. until 1968 when hejoined SeiscomDelta, Inc. in 1975
he became an independent consultant. Anstey iS recipient Of
many awards from the SEG, EAEG and AAPG (see TM
January 1986, p. 26). In addition to his mktier as a Seismic
interpreter, Anstey is a geophysical instructor and writer of
international renown. He is also the guiding force behind the
geophysicsportion of the Video Library of the International
Human ResourcesDevelopment Corp. to which he refersin his
article.
GEOPHYSICS:
THE LEADING
EDGE OF EXPLORATION
MARCH
1986
45