Interferometric Seismic Imaging

Claerbout’s daylight imaging concept is generalized to the general theory of interferometric seismic imaging (II). Interferometric seismic imaging is defined to be any algorithm that inverts crosscorrelated seismic data for the reflectivity or source distribution. As examples, we show that II can be used to image reflectivity distributions by migrating ghost reflections in passive seismic data, and II generalizes the receiver-function imaging method used by seismologists. Interferometric seismic imaging can also be used to migrate free-surface and peg-leg multiples in CDP data and image source distributions from passive seismic data. Both synthetic and field data examples are used to illustrate the different possibilities of II. The key advantage of II is that it can be used to image source locations or reflectivity distributions from passive seismic data where the source position or wavelet is unknown. In some cases it can mitigate defocusing errors due to statics or an incorrect migration velocity. The main drawback with II is that severe migration artifacts can be created by partial focusing of virtual multiples.