Wave equation datuming to correct topography effect on foothill seismic data

The current seismic processing applies Static Corrections to overcome the effects associated to rough topography, based in the assumption that velocity in near surface is lower than in the substratum, which force going up rays travel near to vertical. However, when the velocity contrast between these layers is not large enough, the trajectory of the up going rays deviate from vertical raveling the reflectors erroneously. A better alternative to correct this is to continue the wave field to a datum, because it does not assume vertical ray trajectory and solves the acoustic wave equation to extrapolate sources and receivers. The Kirchhoff approach was tested in synthetic shots continuing their wave field to a datum and finally it was applied instead of Static Corrections in real data acquired in foothill zones. First shot and receiver gathers were downward continued to the base of weathering layer and later upward continued to a final flat datum. Comparing the obtained results we observed that continuation approach provides a noticeable enhancement of reflectors in seismic records, displaying a better continuity of the reflectors and an increment in frequency content.