Using Mirror Migration of OBS Data to Image the Deepwater Area of South China Sea

Ocean bottom seismograph (OBS) is widely used in investigating deep crustal structure, which is characterized by a large amount of data information and abundant frequency components because of its multi-component acquisition. OBS is seldom used in deepwater oil and gas exploration and basin research due to the high cost. The complicated seismic wave field is caused by the complex seabed topography, basin and oil and gas structure in deepwater area, which increases the difficulty of image processing. In addition to reflection imaging, we utilize the multiple of OBS data to make accurate imaging and have achieved desirable results in a deep sea area in South China Sea in this paper. Firstly, the original P and Z components of OBS data are processed by wave field separation to obtain the upgoing wave filed and downgoing wave filed. Secondly, its image velocity filed is constructed. Finally, downgoing wave data is used to image (called mirror migration). Compared with conventional migration, the mirror migration can clearly image the seabed and provide better illumination for shallow layer below the seafloor in the case of sparse nodes, which is proved by the migration results of theoretical and real data in this paper.