Wave-equation deconvolution: A short-period demultiple tool for streamer, OBN and land environments

Short-period multiple attenuation is often challenging as the multiple generators are typically not sufficiently well recorded as primary events for SRME to be successful. Model-based approaches have traditionally been used to circumvent this problem but may only model multiples generated by key events such as the waterbottom. Deconvolution-based alternatives offer the possibility to model multiples from more short-period multiple generators, but in practice many acquisition geometries are not well suited to higher-dimensional deconvolution implementations. We discuss a wave-equation deconvolution approach (WEDecon) which derives its prediction operator in the image domain. The image is then used to predict multiples which are subtracted from the data. We highlight the flexibility of WEDecon using data examples from towed-streamer, OBN and land geometries. The WEDecon approach has been successful at significantly reducing levels of residual multiple present in all these data types. We acknowledge, however, that short-period multiple attenuation is still a challenging topic and that further work is necessary in this area.