Surface-related multiple elimination on land seismic data—Strategies via case studies

Three processing strategies for the estimation and subsequent elimination of surface-related multiple energy on land seismic data are presented. They can be applied in a prestack mode (to shot and common-midpoint gathers) or in a poststack mode. The algorithm for the multiple attenuation is based on wave theoretical principles in which the data are used as a prediction operator. The estimated multiples are then adaptively subtracted from the input data to obtain primary-only data. A processing step prior to applying multiple elimination is an important component of these methodologies, particularly in the prestack analysis. Its aim is to regularize the data, improve the S/N ratio, and balance the seismic amplitudes. This results in smooth prediction operators. The effectiveness of these schemes in suppressing multiples is demonstrated with a number of case studies involving processing land seismic data.