Patent ID: 6925386

Claim:
A method for seismic acquisition, comprising generating idealized subsurface illumination using idealized survey data; performing the following during each of a sequence of time intervals during a seismic survey: collecting an incremental portion of actual survey data, using data acquisition equipment at a data acquisition location; communicating the incremental portion of actual survey data from the data acquisition location to a data processing location; generating an incremental portion of actual subsurface illumination using the incremental portions of actual survey data; and appending the incremental portion of actual subsurface illumination to previously generated portions of actual subsurface illumination from previous time intervals, to incrementally generate actual subsurface illumination at the data processing location; determining if additional data acquisition is desirable by comparison of the idealized subsurface illumination and the actual subsurface illumination, in the data processing location; and performing any desirable additional data acquisition before the data acquisition equipment leaves the data acquisition location.