Wave-Theory-Based Seismic Data Preprocessing: An Extension of the Current Deghosting Method to Allow for a Variable Measurement Surface Topography and Its Impact on the Inverse Scattering Series Internal Multiple Attenuation and Elimination

In seismic exploration activities, information about the nature of the seismic experiment including defining the data acquisition surface is an important prerequisite for many data processing methods. It is not unusual in modern seismic experiments for the data to be collected from a non-horizontal acquisition surface. Treating the non-horizontal acquisition surface as if it is horizontal may cause problems in seismic data processing. This dissertation illustrates and studies the extensions and advances regarding the non-horizontal acquisition in two different steps within the seismic-processing chain. The first part studies and tests, both analytically and numerically, the first deghosting method that can deghost the data on a non-horizontal acquisition surface. A simple 1D example of the method is shown analytically, and two numerical examples with 1D earth-2D source and 1D earth-3D source, respectively, are shown in this part. The results show the effectiveness of the new method, and lead the deghosting task towards ocean bottom and land applications, where deviation from horizontal acquisition surface can often be significant. The second part studies the horizontal acquisition surface assumption that resides in the current version of the inverse-scattering series (ISS) internal-multiple attenuation and elimination algorithms. The consequence of ignoring this assumption is illustrated by a numerical example, and the precise origin of this acquisition surface assumption violation and its injurious consequence are also illustrated by an analytic analysis. At the end of the second part, a solution for ISS multiple removal is proposed, tested, and evaluated to accommodate the non-horizontal acquisition.Physics, Department o