MARGO 2709

Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35

www.elsevier.nl/locate/margeo

A single-channel seismic reflection method for quantifying lateral

variations in BSR reflectivity
T.M. McGee*
Marine Minerals Technology Center, University of Mississippi, 220 Old Chemistry Building, University, MS 38677, USA
Received 9 July 1998; received in revised form 15 December 1998; accepted 5 February 1999

Abstract
Results of seismic inversion techniques and logs of deep-sea bore holes indicate that bottom simulating reflectors (BSRs)
which exhibit high reflection amplitudes are underlain by a thin layer of free gas. Often, however, BSRs exhibit relatively low
amplitudes and display significant lateral variability. In these cases the structure is not well understood and remains a topic of
research.
Waveform inversion has been used to investigate the distribution of propagation speeds in the vicinity of BSRs, but the
technique is not practical in some situations because it requires multi-channel data sets that include large offset distances
between sources and receivers. Such data are not available in many instances, so it has become attractive to consider other
methods of achieving the same end.
A method that is applicable to single-channel, short-offset data is discussed here. It was originally developed to help
characterize shallow submarine sediments for engineering and environmental purposes. Of course, no single-channel method
can provide information concerning speeds of propagation such as is available from multi-channel methods. In this case the
single-channel method has an advantage, however, in that it is self-calibrating. That allows it to provide, after correction for
wave-front divergence, true reflection amplitudes without considering source characteristics or referencing to a known, or
inferred, propagation parameter such as speed or density. These true amplitudes then yield reflection coefficients by correcting
for transmission losses.
Use of the method is illustrated with the help of synthetic data. It is demonstrated that the accuracy of results is improved by
using a rapid digitizing rate during data acquisition. The method is then applied to a set of real data that previously had been
analyzed by full-waveform inversion. The results are noisy, largely due to the data having been digitized at a rather slow rate
and the length of recording being too short; however, average values of reflection coefficients at the sea floor and the BSR
compare well with average values obtained by the inversion procedure. It is concluded that the single-channel method provides
reasonable values for reflection coefficients. This suggests that, with judicious constraints on density variations, single-channel
data could provide information on the structure of propagation speed in the vicinity of BSRs. Moreover, it would involve
substantially less effort than is required for full-waveform inversion. q 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Gas hydrates; Bottom simulating reflector; Reflection coefficient; Deconvolution

1. Introduction

Under proper conditions, the base of the gas hydrate

* Tel.: 11-662-915-7320; fax: 11-662-915-5625. stability zone in marine sediments is marked by a
E-mail address: tmm@mmri.olemiss.edu (T.M. McGee). bottom simulating reflector (BSR). For this reason,
0025-3227/00/$ - see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0025-322 7(99)00124-3
30 T.M. McGee / Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35
BSRs are commonly relied upon as indicators of gas
hydrates in the sea floor. The distribution of propaga-
tion speeds in the vicinity of BSRs, as revealed by
seismic reflectivity, has been investigated at several
locations worldwide by applying full-waveform
inversion to multi-offset reflection data. Results
from several locations indicate that BSRs character-
ized by high reflection amplitudes are underlain by a
thin layer of free gas (Singh et al., 1993). This has
been confirmed by drilling (MacKay et al., 1994;
Holbrook et al., 1996).
Reflections from BSRs are not always high ampli-
tude, however, and they commonly display strong
lateral variability. The reasons for this are not well
understood. The use of waveform inversion to investi-
gate BSRs is limited due to the requirement of
relatively large source/receiver offset distances. The
method also involves a significant level of effort for
processing and interpretation.
This paper discusses a method for determining
variations in BSR reflectivity that is fast and applic-
able to single-channel data. The method was origin-
ally developed for environmental and engineering
applications as part of the European Communities
MAST-1 Project GISP (Theilen et al., 1993). It
requires that the source/receiver offset distance be
small compared to the water depth and that reflector
dips not exceed a few degrees; prerequisites which are
usually satisfied in the context of BSRs. It also
requires that the data be recorded digitally until
the onset of the second water-layer multiple; a pre-
requisite that is satisfied less often.
The method produces best results if the water is
deep enough that the so-called “primary sequence”,
i.e. the water-bottom reflection and the coda that
follows it (including shallow subsurface reflections,
the BSR and attendant interbed multiples) decay to
insignificance prior to the onset of the first water-
layer multiple. Also, results are improved if digitiza-
tion is done at a rapid rate, i.e. fast enough to place at
least 10 samples within the dominant wavelength of
the seismic signal. This improves the coherence
between the primary sequence and the analogous
“first multiple sequence” that begins with the first
water-layer multiple of the water-bottom reflection.
If the coherence is high enough, a deconvolution of
the first multiple sequence to the primary sequence
compensates for the source pulse and provides, after
correction for wave front divergence, a measure of the
true amplitude of each reflected arrival. These true
amplitudes then yield reflection coefficients when
corrected for transmission losses.
2. The single-channel method
If the signal-to-noise ratio is high, the frequency
domain representation of the primary sequence,
P… f †; may be approximated as a multiplication of
the spectral response of the system, S… f †; with that
of the geologic layering, G… f †; i.e.:
P… f † ˆ S… f †G… f † …1†
Under calm conditions, the surface of the water is a
nearly perfect (negative) reflector which reflects the
upward traveling primary sequence back toward the
sea floor to produce what is called a “water-layer
multiple”. Each time the sequence of propagating
wavelets is reflected from the water surface, the effect
of the sea floor and subbottom layers can be repre-
sented in the frequency domain as an additional multi-
plication by 2G… f †; the minus sign accounting for the
polarity reversal that accompanies reflection from the
underside of the water surface. Thus the spectrum of
the first multiple sequence can be written:
M… f † ˆ 2S… f †G… f †G… f † …2†
At frequencies for which P… f † is not zero, Eq. (2)
may be divided by Eq. (1) to obtain the negative of the
spectral response of the geologic layering:
M… f †=P… f † ˆ 2G… f † …3†
which may be inversely transformed to obtain a time
series containing the negative of the true amplitudes
of primary reflections from the sea floor and sub-
bottom interfaces. This time series also contains
multiple reflections internal to the geologic layers,
so some interpretation is required to identify the
primary reflections. After that is done, the reflection
coefficient of any layer interface may be determined
by dividing the true amplitude of the primary
reflection from that interface by the product of the
transmission coefficients of all interfaces above it.
 T.M. McGee / Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35 31

Fig. 1. (a) Three portions of the two-layer synthetic reflection seismogram described in the text. (b)–(e) Convolutions of (a) with a real seismic
source signature digitized at intervals of 1, 2, 3 and 4 ms, respectively. Note the progressive degradation of wavelet shape as the sampling
becomes coarser.

3. Illustration using synthetic data calculated for two layers between half-spaces. Both
source and receiver are located immediately below the
The trace in Fig. 1(a) shows three intervals of a surface of the upper layer. Two-way travel time
one-dimensional synthetic reflection seismogram through the upper layer is 3000 ms and that through

Fig. 2. Results of applying the single-channel method to the traces in Fig. 1. Note the negative polarity due to reflection from the underside of the
sea surface. Also note the progressive degradation of times of peak amplitudes as the sampling becomes coarser.
32 T.M. McGee / Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35

Fig. 3. Subset of short-offset traces from a profile offshore Costa Rica. This profile has been analyzed using full-waveform inversion by Pecher et
al. (1998). The sea floor reflection, the BSR and the first water-layer multiple are indicated.

the lower is 449 ms. Reflection coefficients used in the
calculations are 1.0 at the top of the upper layer (to
simulate an air–water interface), 0.2 between the
layers (to simulate a water–sediment interface) and
20.5 at the bottom of the lower layer (to simulate a
BSR). The magnitudes of the coefficients have been
defined a bit larger than what would usually be realis-
tic in order that the internal multiple between the two
interfaces be clearly visible. Theoretical values of the
true amplitudes of the synthetic primary reflections
are calculated to be 0.20 for the sea-floor reflection
and 20.48 for the BSR.
The traces of Fig. 1(b)–(e) were created by
convolving Fig. 1(a) with a real seismic source sig-
nature digitized at sampling intervals of 1, 2, 3, and
4 ms, respectively. It may be observed that the shape
of the signature becomes progressively more
degraded as the sampling becomes coarser. The
trace of Fig. 1(d) is particularly noteworthy in this
regard. The maximum (negative) excursion of the
sea-floor reflection appears truncated because no digi-
tal sample happens to coincide with it. The maximum
(positive) excursion of the BSR is also distorted, but
in a different way because the time between the BSR
 T.M. McGee / Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35
Fig. 4. Enlarged portion of Fig. 3 plotted as wiggle traces.
and the sea-floor reflection is not an integral multiple
of the sampling interval. Such differences between
digital waveforms degrade their coherence and consti-
tute a source of processing error that is entirely due to
the digitizing rate being inadequate.
The traces in Fig. 2 display the result of applying
the spectral division of Eq. (3) and inverse trans-
formation to the traces in Fig. 1. Amplitudes on the
trace of Fig. 2(a) occur at the correct times and are
within 0.1% of the theoretical values except that they
are negative due to the effect of the water surface.
Amplitudes on traces of Fig. 2(b)–(e) describe wave-
lets that are approximately symmetrical about their
maximum excursions. The symmetry results from
both primary and multiple wavelets having the same
structure, i.e. that of the source signature, and the
quotient in Eq. (3) being equivalent to a deconvolu-
tion of that structure. The symmetry degrades at
coarser sampling rates due to reduced coherence
between numerator and denominator of Eq. (3).
When the degradation is negligible, i.e. Fig. 2(b),
the maximum excursions occur near the correct
onset times of the reflected wavelets and the ampli-
tudes are within a few percent of the theoretical
values. When the degradation is substantial, as it is
in Fig. 2(d) and (e), the times of the maximum
33
excursions are shifted to erroneous times and their
amplitudes are as much as 20% in error.
4. Application to real data
In order to compare results obtained with real data,
the single-channel method described above was
applied to short-offset traces from a multi-channel
data set previously analyzed by Pecher et al. (1998)
using full-waveform inversion.
The data were acquired offshore Costa Rica in
about 3 s of water at a location where a BSR occurs
about 0.5 s below the sea floor. The source was a
tuned airgun array and the received signals were
digitized at a 4 ms sampling interval over a total
recording time of 8 s.
A gray-scale image of 57 short-offset traces from
the data set is shown in Fig. 3. The sea floor reflection
occurs slightly below 3 s, the BSR at about 3.6 s and
the first water-layer multiple slightly below 6 s.
The primary sequence extends from 3 to 6 s,
approximately, and the first multiple sequence
would extend from slightly below 6 s to more than
9 s had the recording time been that long. Since
calculation of the spectral quotient of Eq. (3) is greatly
simplified when the numerator and denominator are of
the same length, one second of zero values was
appended to the data. Undoubtedly, this is a source
of numerical noise and introduces some error into the
results. In an effort to reduce such noise, data values at
times greater than 7.8 s were linearly tapered to
smooth the transition from non-zero to zero values.
An enlarged portion of Fig. 3 is plotted in Fig. 4 as
wiggle-traces to illustrate the waveforms that
comprise the sea floor and BSR reflections. It can be
seen that the dominant period of the signal is about
25 m. This indicates a dominant frequency of about
40 Hz.
The data in Fig. 3 were corrected for spherical
spreading (at 1500 m/s which is close to the speed
of propagation in water) and the spectral quotient of
Eq. (3) computed after appending zeros to each trace.
An enlarged portion of the output, Fig. 5, illustrates
the waveforms from which true amplitudes were
measured. The dominant period at the sea floor and
the BSR remains 25 ms, indicating that the deconvo-
lution was not able to collapse the waveform to any
34 T.M. McGee / Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35
Fig. 5. Enlarged portion of the output of the single-channel method
applied to traces in Fig. 3.
great extent. This is likely due to the data having
been band-pass filtered with steep cut-off slopes to
facilitate the rather slow digitizing rate.
Comparing Fig. 5 with Fig. 4, it is clear that the
output is noisier than the input. This is typical of
situations in which the coherence between numerator
and denominator of a spectral quotient is low. Spectral
notches in the denominator are not balanced by those
in the numerator and noise is generated at frequencies
where large values are divided by small values. This
could result from either the digitizing rate being too
slow or the recording length being too short. The fact
that both circumstances occur in this case only serves
to exacerbate the problem. It is possible, however, to
follow both the sea floor reflection and the BSR from
trace 1 to trace 40 in Fig. 5 and make amplitude
measurements.
Amplitude measurements on traces 29–39 (the set
over which the full-waveform inversion had been
averaged) average to 20.114 for the sea floor reflec-
tion and 10.059 for the BSR. Taking into account the
polarity reversal and the transmission coefficient at
the sea floor, the average reflection coefficients are
found to be 10.114 at the sea floor and 20.060 at
the BSR.
Fig. 6. Profile of compressional speed versus depth estimated by
Pecher et al. (1998) using full waveform inversion on multi-channel
seismic data.
5. Discussion and conclusions
Application of the single-channel method to
synthetic data shows that, if the digitizing rate is
great enough, amplitudes and arrival times can be
within a few percent of the values used to generate
the synthetic traces. It also shows that the accuracies
of both amplitudes and arrival times degrade rapidly
as the digitizing rate is decreased. This leads to a
conclusion that the accuracy of results is substantially
reduced if the digital sampling rate is too slow. The
reason is decreased coherency between individual.
Pecher et al. (1998) initiated their full-waveform
inversion of the multi-channel data set by determining
the reflection coefficient at the sea floor. They did this
by dividing the amplitude of the first water-layer
multiple by that of the water-bottom reflection
(Hyndman and Spence, 1992; Andreassen et al.,
1995). It was done on the two shortest-offset traces
in common-mid-point gathers whose locations
correspond to traces 29–39 of the data subset shown
in Fig. 3. The 22 values thus obtained averaged to
10.140. By correcting for transmission loss only at
the sea floor, Pecher et al. (1998) assumed that the sea-
floor reflection is generated solely by a change in
 T.M. McGee / Marine Geology 164 (2000) 29–35
density, i.e. that there is no change in speed of propa-
gation across the water bottom, in order to produce
profiles of compressional speed versus depth. Fig. 6
shows such a profile at the location of trace 39. They
then calculated a reflection coefficient from the speed
decrease at the BSR by assuming that there is no
change in density across the BSR and obtained a
value of 20.057. The single-channel method produces
a reflection coefficient of 20.060 at the BSR by
correcting for transmission loss at the sea floor. These
values are in good agreement. It should be noted,
however, that the spectral quotient value was obtained
without any assumptions concerning speed or density
changes across either the sea floor or the BSR.
It can be seen in Figs. 4 and 5 that some reflected
events occur between the sea floor and the BSR. If
they are primary reflections, they would represent
transmission losses that should be included in the
calculation and thereby increase the magnitude of
the reflection coefficient obtained for the BSR. The
events in question are rather weak, so the increase
would not be great, perhaps changing the quoted
value to about 20.062, and there would still be
good agreement with the value obtained by full-
waveform inversion.
It is concluded that, given proper data acquisition,
the spectral quotient method can produce reflection
coefficients that agree well with those produced by
full-waveform inversion.
If reasonable constraints are placed on density
variations, the single-channel reflection coefficients
can then be used to study the structure of propagation
speed in the vicinity of BSRs. Moreover, since only
single-channel data are involved, such studies would
35
involve a significantly lower level of effort than do
multi-channel methods.
Acknowledgements
The assistance and encouragement of Ingo Pecher
in performing this work and the suggestions of Karin
Andreassen concerning the final manuscript are
gratefully acknowledged.
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