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Amplitude Correction

Seismic amplitude correction has an unachievable, idealized goal. The correction strives to provide a seismic section in which the seismic amplitudes accurately portray the values of the reflection coefficients. Under a more modest goal, but still rarely achieved goal, the displayed amplitudes are locally proportional to the reflection coefficients values. The first section reveals why these are difficult goals and the later sections show examples of amplitude correction algorithms.

hypotheses include the role of the movement of fluids in the pores, the friction of microfractures and scattering. It is difficult to confirm the relative influence of different mechanisms because laboratory measurements operate at a

What causes the seismic amplitude problem?


The real world is a messy place. A multitude of phenomena determines the recorded seismic amplitudes. Figure 1 summarizes many of the phenomena that determine the recorded amplitudes. The following paragraphs review these illustrated phenomena.

Figure 1: Factors that alter amplitudes. After (Sheriff, 1975)

Geometric Dilution
Through the application of the conservation of total flux (energy), the further the observation point is from the source, the weaker the appearance of the source. The more distant you are from a light bulb, the dimmer it appears. In a constant-velocity world, the amplitude decreases linearly with distance as the power decreases with the square of the distance. In the world of velocity gradients and directional sources, the actual geometric fall-off depends upon the velocity gradient.

Absorption
There are different hypotheses for the origin of the absorption of sound waves in the Earth. Prominent

AVO
The change of the reflection coefficient with offset depends upon a ratio of six elastic parameters at each interface. (The elastic parameters are P-wave velocity, S-wave velocity, and density.) Each interface has a unique amplitude variation with offset (AVO) as determined by these ratios. The situation becomes even more complex if the seismic speed becomes dependent on the angle of propagation (seismic anisotropy) or if the medium is attenuative.

Changes in source strength and coupling


Surface sources, such a vibroseis, have different coupling characteristics on hard versus compliant material. (With the vibroseis source, an oscillatory mass is the energy source.) In the marine case, there may be air-gun drop out because of mechanical problems. Thus, not all air guns in the array are necessarily in service at all times.

Figure 2: Raw shot profiles. (Yilmaz, Seismic Data Processing, 1987) p. 44, Figure 1-36. With authors permission.) Yilmaz reference: (1987) Page 44, Figure 1-36 Similar to: (2001) Page 96, Figure 1.5-3 Raw shot gathers show amplitude decay.

Changes in receiver coupling


The geophones coupling to the ground depends on the nature of that ground. With some near-surface conditions, there may be difficulties in properly placing the geophones. The receiver coupling can vary significantly within a seismic recording line. The coupling of a single receiver can change while the survey is acquired due to wind, rain or temperature changes.

What are the realistic goals of amplitude correction?


Many migration algorithms assume the input trace amplitudes are in direct proportion to the reflection coefficients. Other, amplitude-correcting migration algorithms assume the trace amplitudes originated from a transparent Earth, one with only geometric amplitude effects. In either case, the recorded trace amplitudes violate either of these assumptions. With the multitude of phenomena that alter amplitudes, it might be tempting to give up and do nothing. Geophysicists try to at least partially correct seismic wave energy loss with application of an amplitude correction algorithm. With the above-listed, amplitude-altering phenomena, we do not know enough about the specific details of these processes to apply a full inversion, directly solving for the values of the reflection coefficients. In other words, the task of inverting each of these phenomena is overwhelming. In the face of this daunting task, we have goals that are more modest: 1. 2. Keep the data visible. At the completion of all processing, trace amplitudes are representative of the relative strengths of the reflection coefficients in comparison to other nearby amplitudes.

Source and receiver arrays


Even in the ideal case, the source and receiver arrays create amplitude directivity. This amplitude directivity is termed the radiation pattern. (This is similar to a television antennas directional sensitivity. A Rabbit-ear antenna, for example, is often re-oriented in order to strengthen the received signal.)

What is the appearance of raw shot profiles?


The net effect of the above-listed phenomena creates recoding time-dependent amplitude decays. The following figure shows a series of raw shot profiles.

Evidence that we have not met these goals: 1. 2. 3. There are amplitude streaks. There are dim or bright regions. Amplitudes do not tie between different surveys.

Time (s)

case, close means separated by a distance equal to the characteristic wavelength of the wavefront. A later chapter explaining the role of wavelets elaborates this point.

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Figure 3 shows seismic data before the application of a poststack amplitude correction. Figure 4 shows the same seismic data after the application of a poststack amplitude correction. This example illustrates the advantages of keeping the data visible.
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The following provides both deterministic and statistical amplitude-correction examples.

Deterministic
The deterministic amplitude-decay compensation procedure selects an algorithm and its parameters that best mimics the decay of seismic amplitudes.

Spherical divergence
Time (s)

Spherical divergence correction is a very common deterministic amplitude process. For the constant-velocity Earth, the spherical divergence decay is: (1) This relationship follows from the inverse-square law for energy.

Figure 3: Seismic data before the application of a poststack amplitude correction. (Processed by Hill from data provided by Parallel Geoscience.)
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In the presence of a vertical velocity gradient, the curved-ray effects further attenuate the amplitude according to the following formula. . (2)

Figure 5 cartoons the reason for the stronger decrease in amplitude with distance. The total flux of energy between the two ray-traced curves is constant. In the presence of a velocity gradient, the separation between the two curved rays increases at a faster rate than in the constant-velocity, straight-ray case. Thus, for this 2D case, the decay of the energy (and, associated amplitude) with distance is more severe in the case with the vertical velocity gradient.

Figure 4: Seismic data after the application of a poststack amplitude correction. (Processed by Hill from data provided by Parallel Geoscience.) Yilmaz reference: (1987) Page 51 & 55, Figure 1-48 & 53 Similar to: (2001) Page 115 & 116, Figure 1.5-22 & -23 These figures show the stacked section before and after application of gain function shows importance of keeping data visible.

Time (s)

Constant Velocity

Increasing Velocity

Figure 5: Geometric spreading decay. While these formulas are theoretically satisfying, they may do an inadequate job of matching the decay of real field data because of the presence of additional decay phenomena. For this situation, a statistical correction often follows the application of these deterministic corrections. Figure 6 and Figure 7 show a shot profile before and after the application of spherical divergence correction. (Data before the application of an amplitude correction is often termed raw data.) Because this shot profile contains only 1.1 s of data, the differences in the two figures is modest.

What are amplitude-correction solutions?


Amplitude-correction solutions can be divided into deterministic and statistical categories. The deterministic processes use the understanding of a dominant amplitudedecay mechanism to invert the amplitudes. The statistical approach depends upon the statistics in the traces themselves. In fact, the division between deterministic and statistical is not quite so clean-cut because deterministic methods also typically use the data to determine an essential theoretical parameter.

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Time (s)

Figure 6: Raw shot profile. (Processed by Hill from data provided by Parallel Geoscience.)

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Time (s)

Figure 8: Shot profile before (left) and after (right) spherical divergence correction. (Yilmaz, Seismic Data Analysis, 2001) Page 212, Figure 2.4-36. By authors permission.) Yilmaz references: (2001) Page 212, Figure 2.4-36 (1987) Page 44, Figure 1-36 & 37 Similar to: Raw shot before and after spherical-divergence correction. Raw shot before and after spherical-divergence correction.

Figure 7: Shot profile after application of spherical divergence correction. (Processed by Hill from data provided by Parallel Geoscience.) The next figure (Figure 8) is another example of shot profiles before and after spherical divergence correction. In this case, the comparison is significantly more dramatic.

(2001) Page 82, Figure 1.4-1, -2 (1987) Page 58, Figures 1-58 & 59 (2001) Page 84, Figure 1.4-4, -.5 Shot profiles before and after spherical-divergence correction illustrates the gain application enhanced the visibility of the ambient noise.

Attributes of deterministic gain functions


The following are attributes of deterministic gain functions. Data independence. Other than the specification of a constant proportionality factor through inspection of the amplitudes in the data, the deterministic gain processes are ignorant of the actual amplitudes in the data.

Amplitude contrast preserving. Noise susceptibility.

The processes preserve the amplitude contrasts between nearby amplitudes. If the noise is stronger than the signal, the deterministic gain functions preserve the noise. Because we define the deterministic gain functions by a very small number of parameters, we can save those parameters and apply an inverse to the gain at a subsequent stage in processing. Because a deterministic gain algorithm may fail to meet its goal, a statistical gain process may follow. The time dependence of deterministic gain functions is very smooth; it does not have discontinuities. A very straightforward application of a deterministic gain algorithm, with an identical gain function applied to all traces, can result in a vertically streaked seismic section. The streaks arise through systematic, location-dependent variations in the input trace amplitudes.

each trace from its observed amplitudes. The algorithms then apply the respective gain functions to each individual trace.

Windowed AGC
An example of a trace-by-trace gain function is the commonly used, windowed AGC (Automatic Gain Control) process. Using Figure 10 as a guide, the following are the steps for a particular implementation of a windowed AGC operation. 1. Window the trace. User specifies a time interval, the calculation window. Calculate the sum of the absolute values of the amplitudes in each time window. Some practitioners term the sum of the absolute value of the trace amplitudes as the traces power. For each window interval, calculate the reciprocal of the calculated power. Linearly interpolate the reciprocal of the summation of the absolute value of the trace amplitudes. This interpolated value is the expansion function. For each time sample, multiply the trace amplitude by the expansion function, creating the gained trace.

Reversibility.

Follow-up gain.

2. Determine window power.

Smooth.

3. Reciprocal of power. 4. Interpolate powers reciprocal as expansion function.

Streaks.

5. Apply gain function.

Statistical
Observing that there is not a single, dominant amplitudedetermining phenomenon leads to the adoption of statistical amplitude-correction algorithms. The statistical algorithms use a simple statistical measure, such as an average, to determine the gain function. Figure 9 idealizes the statistical approach with the observed time dependence of the amplitude decay specifying the gain function.
Observed Amplitude
t t

Gain Function

Original Trace

1 Ampl i

Data determines gain function

Expansion Expansion Gained Table Function Trace

Figure 10: Windowed AGC operation. Figure 9: A statistically designed gain function attempts to compensate for amplitude loss observed along a trace. Figure 11 shows a shot profile after the application of a trace-by-trace, windowed gain function. Figure 6 shows the same data set before the application of a gain function and Figure 7 shows the same input data, but after the application of a deterministic gain function. Using a short window in the statistical gain algorithm, the amplitudes are more homogeneous than in these previous two figures.

Trace-by-trace statistical gain algorithms


As the name implies, trace-by-trace statistical gain algorithms determine trace-dependent gain functions for

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Time (s)

the gain function over a distance of the size of the user-specified window. The presence of these large amplitudes creates small values in the gain function over the length of the window. The gain functions small values diminishes the amplitudes of adjacent small values. (SeeFigure 12: Shadow zone. Figure 12) Regularizes amplitudes. The application of a statistical gain correction causes the value of its statistic, such as the sum of the absolute value of the amplitudes, to be approximately the same in all windows for all traces. Because of this, all traces in CMP have equal contributions in the creation of the stacked trace, providing maximum signal-to-noise improvement. The smaller the window length, the greater will be the degree of trace equalization homogenization. The larger the window, the lesser will be the vote by any one amplitude.

Figure 11: Shot profile after the application of a windowed gain function. (Processed by Hill from data provided by Parallel Geoscience.) Yilmaz reference: (2001) Page 87 Figure 1.4-8 Illustrates a time-dependent gain function applied to one trace. Notice that the time windows in the middle display does not exactly correspond to the upper and lower illustration. This is probably an illustration error. Window length.

Attributes of windowed AGC: Not reversible. In practice, the algorithm discards the applied gain function immediately after its application to the data. Therefore, it is not possible to remove that gain function at a later stage in processing. This is unlike the application of a velocity-dependent, spherical divergence correction. It is possible to remove the spherical divergence correction in later processing because we typically save the velocity functions through the entire processing. We could later remove the applied windowed AGC if the algorithm saved its large, applied-gain file. Because the algorithm uses some window-based statistic, such as the average of the absolute value of the amplitudes, very large amplitude values may dominate the determination of

Shadow zone.

Typically, there large Misleading Typically, there will bewill be large contrast in trace amplitudes at around salt. contrast in trace amplitudes at the edges of salt,of salt, for example. the edges for example. The salt interface itself will will The salt interface itself have high amplitudes and the the have high amplitudes and region region within the salt will within the salt will have very low amplitudes. have very low amplitudes. Through a modification of the of the Through a modification shadow zone effect, effect,low low shadow zone these these amplitudes may dominate in amplitudes may dominate in the determination of the of the the determination expansion function, causing expansion function, causing large values values expansion large of the of the expansion function if the majority of the of the function if the majority window is within within the salt and window is the salt and only a only a portion outside of small small portion outside of the salt. FigureFigure 13 cartoons the salt. 13 cartoons this situation for traces traces this situation for adjacent to a salt dome. dome. In this adjacent to a salt In this model,model, the horizontal the horizontal reflection coefficients outside reflection coefficients outside of the salt dosalt do not vary of the not vary laterally, but after the the laterally, but after application of a windowed application of a windowed gain, these amplitudes gain, these amplitudes adjacent to the salt are now now adjacent to the salt are misleadingly larger.larger. misleadingly Similarly, first arrival amplitudes are amplifies and arrivals

immediately behind first arrivals are diminished.

array. As strictly applied, this deterministic amplitude correction does not correct for the effects of source air gun malfunctions. Figure 15 shows the same data after the application of the windowed AGC gain correction, among other processing changes. In the quest to improve the data, the processing geophysicist implemented many variations from the prior processing represented by Figure 14. Notice the improved top-to-bottom amplitude visibility and the reduced amount of vertical amplitude streakiness at numerous lateral locations. In spite of the increased vertical streaking, it may very well be that Figure 14 provides the more accurate representation of the differences in the average value of the reflection coefficients between the upper and lower halves of the displayed data. With the improved visibility in the lower half of Figure 15, it is apparent that the character of the data in the lower half is quite different from that of the upper half.
x t

Original amplitudes

Windowed gain function


Amplitude

Gained amplitudes

Time

Figure 12: Shadow zone. Amplitudes in the vicinity of salt reflections get boosted.

Figure 14: Deterministic gain correction. (Displayed by Jim Reusser, Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.)

x t

Figure 13: Amplitude gain adjacent to salt. The windowed AGC method has many different variations. For example, the windowed amplitude statistic may be the sum of the squares of the trace amplitudes or the windowing function may be tapered. Yilmaz reference: (1987) Page 60, Figure 1-63 Similar to: (2001) Page 89, Figure 1.4-11 As we decrease the size of the window for the gain function, the degree of amplitude homogenization is increased. Figure 15: Windowed AGC gain correction. (Processed by Jim Reusser, Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.) The following series of four figures compare the results of the application of deterministic versus statistical gain corrections for land and marine data. In these cases, the datas amplitudes clearly did not satisfy the assumptions of the applied deterministic gain correction. In the first land data example (Figure 16), there might have been lateral variability of the source coupling or receiver coupling. For a more optimal deterministic amplitude correction process, it would be necessary to address those variations in addition to the spherical divergence corrections.

Figure 14: Deterministic gain correction. (Displayed by Jim Reusser, Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.) shows stacked land seismic data whose processing includes the application of a deterministic gain correction. The vertical oval surrounds one of many vertical amplitude streaks. This is marine data whose onboard log noted sporadic source problems. The vertical amplitude streaks are most likely due to malfunctioning air guns in the source

x
t
Time (s)

Figure 16: Land data after application of deterministic gain correction. (Processed by Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.)

Figure 18: Marine data after application of deterministic gain correction. (Processed by Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.)

Time (s)

x
t

Figure 17: Land data after application of statistical gain correction. (Processed by Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.) In the following marine case, there might have been a gun dropout problem. Thus, the source strength varied from shot to shot. This variation produced the amplitude steaks visible in Figure 18. A more successful deterministic approach would have included a correction for the gun strength variations in addition to the spherical divergence correction.

Figure 19: Marine data after application of statistical gain correction. (Processed by Conoco. Shown by permission of ConocoPhillips.)

Other processes
A large number of seismic processing algorithms alter the time-dependent gain of a trace. Because some of these processes alter the amplitudes in a deleterious fashion, it may be appropriate to follow that process with an application of a statistical gain process. The following is an itemization of various processes and the advisability of the use of a following gain process.

Process Acquisition

Alters gain? Yes

Comments As indicated in Figure 1, all aspects of acquisition determine the gain of the recorded trace. Removal of noise spikes. Stack Yes

After demultiple, we may wish to gain the remaining primaries to improve their visibility or to take out the effect of geometry (1/r) amplitude decay. Because stack improves the signal-to-noise ratio and because the signal-to-noise ratio is time dependent, stack alters the time dependent gain. In addition, necessary trace muting alters the time-dependent fold-of-stack and with that, the time-dependent amplitudes. Post-stack coherency improvement alters the signal-to-noise ratio and the frequency content. Through that, coherency algorithms alter the apparent amplitude decay. By collapsing diffractions and moving steep dips to a shallower portion of the seismic section, migration alters the amplitude decay.

De-spiking Deconvolution Yes

Because decay is a function of frequency, re-balancing the amplitude spectrum alters the overall timedependent amplitude decay. A following chapter explains deconvolution. Because amplitude decay is a function of frequency, altering the amplitude spectrum through frequency filtering alters the overall time-dependent amplitude decay. A later chapter explains frequency filtering. Alters the times of events on traces. It effect on the trace amplitude times is most dramatic for shallow, far offset traces. Even as such, we customarily neglect this effect on amplitudes. In general, trace shifts applied by statics solutions are not large. However, stacked trace amplitudes can increase with the application of a proper statics solution. Considering the average multiple and primary amplitude over a time window, such an average amplitude of multiples has a slower decay rate than primaries. This occurs because the number of multiples in a time window increases with time in comparison to the number of primaries. With increasing time, the total number of independent, multiples paths increases. In the general case, the timedependent decay of a window-based amplitude measure (such as the average of the absolute value of the amplitude) shows slower decay for multiples than primaries.

Frequency Filtering

Yes

Coherency

Yes

NMO Correction

No

Migration

Yes

Yilmaz reference: (1987) Page 40, Figure 1-33, Record 40 (2001) Page 80, Figure 1.3-40 Example of noise spikes from recording system.

Statics Solutions

No

De-multiple

Yes

Well calibration
The availability of well information provides an opportunity to estimate an appropriate gain function under the criterion of matching the seismic amplitudes to a synthetic trace created from the density and velocity logs. This method is distinctly different from the previous, deterministic methods because it does not require a theoretical hypothesis of the origin of the amplitude decay. Instead it uses ground truth to furnish the criterion for the creation of a gain function that would tie the synthetics amplitude with that of a coincident trace. This gain function may then be applied to all traces, under the assumption that the amplitude attenuation is not a function of lateral position. Lateral homogeneity is not the only limiting assumption of the well calibration approach. Density and velocity logs are measured at frequencies that are much higher than that of seismic waves recorded at the surface. The log data requires careful upscaling and blocking to emulate the subsurface properties sensed by propagating seismic waves.

Display of amplitudes
A wiggle-trace display can reveal a dynamic range of up to 20 to 1. The values of the reflection coefficients in the ground have a much greater variation. This explains the popularity of color displays that are not limited by a representation of a lateral trace excursion. However, the storage requirements on interpretation workstations demand that we reduce the dynamic range of the amplitudes before display. The high amplitudes may be clipped and the low amplitudes may become invisible. To make informed decisions about trace amplitudes, it is vital to have a standard of comparison. For this reason, some prefer the use of the calibrated color bar along with the expansion. A robust statistic, such as the median of the amplitudes, may be the basis of the expansion and the calibrated color bar. With the application of these tools, the color display may portray the amplitude in terms of the median of the absolute value of the amplitude for the entire survey.

Interpreters role
Raw seismic data are often un-interpretable and flat-out ugly. Seismic records require processing to be displayed for meaningful analysis. Here are some issues that the interpreter should keep in mind: Be aware of what the processed amplitudes represent. Are these amplitudes processed with the goal of being most visually pleasing? Are the amplitudes balanced to bring out weak (but important) reflection events or are the amplitudes a representation of the subsurface reflectivity? True amplitude processing aims at preserving the reflection coefficient in the data. Is your data true amplitude? If not, are the seismic processing steps deterministic and reversible? Does your interpretation depend upon the successful retrieval of the true amplitudes through processing? What were possible amplitude related problems of the raw data? What processing-tools were employed to fix these issues? Be aware of the amplitude corrections assumptions. Does your data meet these amplitude corrections assumptions? Does the shallower section introduce uncompensated amplitude problems? The presence of salt or gas serves as a couple of examples. Be caution in interpreting amplitudes close to strong reflection events such as water bottom or salt bodies. High amplitude reflections often dominate statistical amplitude-gaining algorithms and may cause side effects. Paste Here

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