Systems and methods for direct arrival estimation for marine seismic data

One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations for estimating direct-arrival energy in seismic data acquired in a marine environment, the operations comprising:

• executing, by the one or more processors, operations on seismic data that contain up-going and down-going wavefields in which direct-arrival information is not properly or completely recorded;
• processing the seismic data using a computer-based wavefield-analysis technique to identify water-layer reverberation events within the up-going and down-going wavefields;
• leveraging, through computer-implemented analysis, stable relationships among water-layer reverberations;
• computing, by the one or more processors, an estimated direct-arrival signal based on the identified relationships to compensate for missing or improperly recorded direct-arrival information;
• and
• producing, using the one or more processors, a direct-arrival estimate configured for use in subsequent seismic-processing operations.

A system for estimating direct-arrival energy in seismic data acquired in a marine environment, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• at least one memory comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• executing, by the one or more processors, operations on seismic data that contain up-going and down-going wavefields in which direct-arrival information is not properly or completely recorded;
• processing the seismic data using a computer-based wavefield-analysis technique to identify water-layer reverberation events within the up-going and down-going wavefields;
• leveraging, through computer-implemented analysis, stable relationships among water-layer reverberations;
• computing, by the one or more processors, an estimated direct-arrival signal based on the identified relationships to compensate for missing or improperly recorded direct-arrival information;
• and
• producing, using the one or more processors, a direct-arrival estimate configured for use in subsequent seismic-processing operations.