Seismic data acquisition and source-side derivatives generation and application

A seismic data acquisition system, comprising:

• a first source group having a plurality of seismic sources arranged therein according to a first activation sequence;
• a second source group having a plurality of seismic sources arranged therein according to a second activation sequence;
• and
• a source controller coupled to the first source group and the second source group, wherein the source controller is configured to activate each seismic source in the first source group according to the first activation sequence and each seismic source in the second source group according to the second activation sequence, wherein the first activation sequence is orthogonal to the second activation sequence such that the cross-correlation between the first activation sequence and the second activation sequence is about zero for substantially all time shifts.

A computer system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory comprising program instructions executable by the processor to:
• process seismic data acquired using a first source signal emitted based on a first activation sequence and a second source signal emitted based on a second activation sequence orthogonal to the first activation sequence, wherein the cross-correlation between the first activation sequence and the second activation sequence is substantially zero;
• and
• decode the seismic data based on the first activation sequence and the second activation sequence.

A method for generating and applying source-side derivatives, comprising:

• encoding a first seismic source and a second seismic source with orthogonal codes;
• decoding the first seismic source and the second seismic source with the orthogonal codes;
• acquiring a response to the first seismic source and a response to the second seismic source at a plurality of source locations;
• deriving a source-side derivative from the response to the first seismic source and the response to the second seismic source for each source location;
• and applying the source-side derivatives.