Use of wavelet cross-correlation for virtual source denoising

A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing one or more instructions executable by a computer system to perform operations comprising:

• receiving seismic shot gather data of a subsurface area from a data store for processing;
• separating the received seismic shot gather data into downgoing and upgoing wavefields, wherein a time-frequency-wavenumber (t-f-k) three-dimensional (3D) data cube is formed, and wherein the t-f-k 3D data cube comprises multiple time-frequency (t-f) slices;
• wavelet transforming the downgoing wavefields from a time (t) domain to a t-f domain and the upgoing wavefields from the t domain to the t-f domain;
• performing a wavelet cross-correlation between the downgoing wavefields in the t-f domain and the upgoing wavefields in a t-f-k domain to generate wavelet cross-correlated data;
• performing soft-threshold filtering for each t-f slice of the t-f-k 3D data cube;
• performing an inverse wavelet transform to bring wavelet cross-correlated data from the t-f-k domain to a time-receiver (t-x) domain;
• looping over all seismic shots of the received seismic shot gather data and stacking the wavelet cross-correlated data as a virtual source gather;
• and
• generating an image of the subsurface area based on the virtual source gather.

A computer-implemented system, comprising:

• one or more computers;
• and
• one or more computer memory devices interoperably coupled with the one or more computers and having tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable media storing one or more instructions that, when executed by the one or more computers, perform one or more operations comprising:
• receiving seismic shot gather data of a subsurface area from a data store for processing;
• separating the received seismic shot gather data into downgoing and upgoing wavefields, wherein a time-frequency-wavenumber (t-f-k) three-dimensional (3D) data cube is formed, and wherein the t-f-k 3D data cube comprises multiple time-frequency (t-f) slices;
• wavelet transforming the downgoing wavefields from a time (t) domain to a t-f domain and the upgoing wavefields from the t domain to the t-f domain;
• performing a wavelet cross-correlation between the downgoing wavefields in the t-f domain and the upgoing wavefields in a t-f-k domain to generate wavelet cross-correlated data;
• performing soft-threshold filtering for each t-f slice of the t-f-k 3D data cube;
• performing an inverse wavelet transform to bring wavelet cross-correlated data from the t-f-k domain to a time-receiver (t-x) domain;
• looping over all seismic shots of the received seismic shot gather data and stacking the wavelet cross-correlated data as a virtual source gather;
• and
• generating an image of the subsurface area based on the virtual source gather.