Method of subsurface imaging using superposition of sensor sensitivities from geophysical data acquisition systems

A physical non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause a computing system to perform a method for volume imaging of physical properties of an examined medium from at least one data acquisition system deployed as a fixed array and/or from at least one moving platform using at least one source and placed in at least one position on the at least one data acquisition system and one or more sensors, the method comprising:

• a. measuring at least one component of geophysical field data with the one or more sensors located in one or more receiving positions along one or more survey lines performed by the at least one data acquisition system;
• b. selecting one or more subsets of a geophysical survey comprising the one or more survey lines performed by the data acquisition system, the selected one or more subsets being based on a pairing of the at least one source and the one or more sensors located in the one or more receiving positions;
• c. determining integrated sensitivity subdomains for the pairing of the at least one source and the one or more sensors of the selected one or more subsets of the geophysical survey by calculating one or more volumes where an integrated sensitivity of the selected one or more subsets is greater than a given threshold, wherein those volumes where the integrated sensitivity of the selected one or more subsets is greater than the given threshold are included in the sensitivity subdomains;
• d. calculating a sensitivity of geophysical data collected by the selected subsets of the geophysical survey corresponding to the integrated sensitivity subdomains;
• e. calculating a total sensitivity for the entire geophysical survey as the superposition of the sensitivities calculated for all of the integrated sensitivity subdomains;
• f. constructing a 3D volume image of the corresponding physical property of the examined medium by applying inversion/migration imaging to the geophysical data measured by the at least one data acquisition system using the total sensitivity calculated as the superposition of the sensitivities from all of the integrated sensitivity subdomains;
• and
• g. selecting one or more geographical formations and/or man-made objects for further exploration based on the constructed 3D volume image, the selection specifying which portion of the examined medium that the selected one or more geographical formations and/or man-made are located.

A system for volume imaging of physical properties from data acquisition systems deployed as a fixed array and/or from at least one moving platform comprising:

• a data acquisition system deployed as a fixed array and/or from at least one moving platform:
• at least one source and one or more sensors that are part of the data acquisition system configured to generate and measure at least one component of geophysical field data;
• and
• a computing system comprising:
• a processor;
• one or more physical non-transitory computer readable medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon that when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform the following:
• a. measure at least one component of the geophysical field data with the one or more sensors located in one or more receiving positions along one or more survey lines performed by the at least one data acquisition system;
• b. selecting one or more subsets of a geophysical survey comprising the one or more survey lines performed by the data acquisition system, the selected one or more subsets being based on a pairing of the at least one source and the one or more sensors located in the one or more receiving positions;
• c. determining integrated sensitivity subdomains for the pairing of the at least one source and the one or more sensors of the selected one or more subsets of the geophysical survey by calculating one or more volumes where an integrated sensitivity of the selected one or more subsets is greater than a given threshold, wherein those volumes where the integrated sensitivity of the selected one or more subsets is greater than the given threshold are included in the sensitivity subdomains;
• d. calculate a sensitivity of geophysical data collected by the selected subsets of the geophysical survey corresponding to the integrated sensitivity subdomains;
• e. calculate a total sensitivity for the entire geophysical survey as the superposition of the sensitivities calculated for all of the integrated sensitivity subdomains;
• f. construct a 3D volume image of the corresponding physical property of the examined medium by applying inversion/migration imaging to the geophysical data measured by the at least one data acquisition system using the total sensitivity calculated as the superposition of the sensitivities from all of the integrated sensitivity subdomains;
• and
• g. select one or more geographical formations and/or man-made objects for further exploration based on the constructed 3D volume image, the selection specifying which portion of the examined medium that the selected one or more geographical formations and/or man-made are located.