Reliable Denoising Strategy to Enhance the Accuracy of Arrival Time Picking of Noisy Microseismic Recordings

We propose a method to enhance the accuracy of arrival time picking of noisy microseismic recordings. A series of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) of the microseismic signal are initially decomposed by employing the ensemble empirical mode decomposition. Subsequently, the sample entropy values of the obtained IMFs are calculated and applied to set an appropriate threshold for selecting IMFs. These are then reconstructed to distinguish between noise and useful signals. Ultimately, the Akaike information criterion picker is used to determine the arrival time of the denoised signal. Test results using synthetic noisy microseismic recordings demonstrate that the proposed approach can significantly reduce picking errors, with errors within the range of 1-3 sample intervals. The proposed method can also give a more stable picking result when applied to different microseismic recordings with different signal-to-noise ratios. Further application in real microseismic recordings confirms that the developed method can estimate an accurate arrival time of noisy microseismic recordings.