Edge effects in cylindrical slant stacks

This paper examines the effects on cylindrical slant stacks of spatially-truncating a wide-aperture seismic section. We demonstrate that a step discontinuity in offset coverage, usually caused by only having available a limited range of data, is responsible for the linear artifacts frequently seen in slant stacks. These we show to have slopes corresponding to the offsets of the discontinuities in the x-t domain. We also show that the artifacts can be attenuated by applying an appropriate offset taper function to the section before slant stacking. This procedure is illustrated on some wide-aperture seismic data shot in the Gulf of Mexico.