Patent ID: 8208342

Claim:
A method for combining signals of pressure sensors and particle motion sensors in towed marine seismic streamers, comprising: converting seismic signals recorded in the towed marine seismic streamers into at least one of upgoing and downgoing components of the seismic signals, the seismic signals representative of characteristics of subsurface earth formations and acquired by deployment of a plurality of pressure sensors and particle motion sensors overlying an area of the earth's subsurface to be evaluated, the sensors generating at least one of an electrical and optical signal in response to seismic energy, by the following: determining cross-line slownesses for samples in the signals in the streamers; selecting a range of assumed cross-line slownesses; determining vertical wavenumbers for the range of assumed cross-line slownesses; using the determined vertical wavenumbers to correct the particle motion sensor signals for angle of incidence along the direction of the streamers and transverse thereto, to generate corrected particle motion sensor signals; combining the corrected particle motion sensor signals based on the determined cross-line slowness for the samples; and using the corrected particle motion sensor signal and the pressure sensor signal to determine at least one of upgoing and downgoing pressure components and upgoing and downgoing particle motion components of the particle motion sensor and pressure sensor signals, useful for imaging the earth's subsurface.