Source-receiver interferometry for seismic wavefield construction and ground-roll removal

Seismic interferometry describes the construction of unmeasured wavefield responses (or Green's functions) between two or more points by applying cross-correlation, deconvolution, or convolution to seismic data recordings. The practical implications are that, applying inter-receiver interferometry, a "virtual" (imaginary) source of energy can be created at the location to a real receiver by using energy recorded from surrounding sources. Similarly, by using inter-source interferometry, a virtual receiver can be created at the location of a real source by using energy recorded at surrounding receivers (Curtis et al., 2009). These two methods can be combined to create the new technique of source-receiver interferometry (Curtis, 2009; Curtis and Halliday, 2010; Halliday and Curtis, 2010) which synthesizes real-source to real-receiver Green's function estimates using only energy recorded at a surrounding boundary of receivers and from an additional surrounding boundary of sources. The boundary sources in each case can be active (such as an explosive or vibrating source) or passive (such as noise from anthropogenic activity or ocean waves). This paper describes the first real-data application of source-receiver interferometry, and demonstrates its potential to enhance existing methods of interferometric ground-roll suppression.