Wave equation datuming applied to marine OBS data and to land high resolution seismic profiling

One key step in seismic data processing flows is the computation of static corrections, which relocate shotsand receivers at the same datum plane and remove near surface weathering effects. We applied a standardstatic correction and a wave equation datuming and compared the obtained results in two case studies: 1) asparse ocean bottom seismometers dataset for deep crustal prospecting; 2) a high resolution land reflectiondataset for hydrogeological investigation. In both cases, a detailed velocity field, obtained by tomographicinversion of the first breaks, was adopted to relocate shots and receivers to the datum plane. The resultsemphasize the importance of wave equation datuming to properly handle complex near surface conditions. Inthe first dataset, the deployed ocean bottom seismometers were relocated to the sea level (shot positions) anda standard processing sequence was subsequently applied to the output. In the second dataset, the applicationof wave equation datuming allowed us to remove the coherent noise, such as ground roll, and to improve theimage quality with respect to the application of static correction. The comparison of the two approachesevidences that the main reflecting markers are better resolved when the wave equation datuming procedureis adopted.