Patent ID: 8463547

Claim:
A method for imaging a subsurface formation using at least two seismic sources and a set of at least two seismic receivers, the method comprising the steps of: a) activating each seismic source so as to excite the subsurface formation and create a wave field and, for each source, obtaining a set of seismic records for each receiver; b) performing a wave field separation on the set of seismic records obtained in step a) so as to obtain a set of direction-sensitive responses, including a downgoing wavefield, from each receiver; c) obtaining a virtual source signal for at least a first selected receiver k by cross-correlating at least part of the response of a second selected receiver m with at least part of the response of the first selected receiver k and summing the cross-correlated responses from the at least two sources, so that receiver k becomes a virtual source; d) for each receiver that becomes a virtual source, estimating an amplitude radiation pattern for that virtual source by performing a time-spatial transform of data based on the downgoing wavefield; e) deconvolving at least one virtual source signal with at least part of the estimated radiation pattern for that receiver so as to produce an amplitude-corrected virtual source signal having amplitudes that correspond to more a homogeneous amplitude radiation pattern than the amplitude radiation pattern estimated for that virtual source); and f) using the amplitude-corrected virtual source signal produced in step e) to create an image of the subsurface formation.