Attenuation of surface-related multiples for single-channel seismic survey in offshore engineering

Single-channel marine seismic profiling method is one of the key geophysical exploration techniques for geological survey in offshore engineering. However, the obtained seismic data often contain strong surface-related multiple wave interference due to the constraints of seawater layer and seafloor undulations, which is difficult to suppress and poses a huge challenge for accurately interpreting the geological information carried in seismic data. Here, we reported an effective method for attenuating surface-related multiples and established a technical system for suppressing surface-related multiples for single-channel marine seismic data. The periods of the surface-related multiples in different seismic channels could be obtained by integrating the first-break arrival-times of the primary reflections and the first-order surface-related multiples from seafloor that effectively solved the difficult problem of defining the prediction step size (also known as multiple wave period) for predicting deconvolution under undulating seafloor conditions. The strategy of predictive deconvolution through multi-iterations effectively solved the problem of inaccurate prediction and incomplete attenuation of surface-related multiples caused by background noise interference and inaccurate first-break picking. Good application results had been achieved through the processing of single-channel marine seismic data from the South China Sea. The research results indicated that our method provided a fast, efficient, and economical technical solution for suppressing surface-related multiples in single-channel marine seismic data.