Patent ID: 6865487

Claim:
Method for decimating seismic traces in an acquisition of 3D data, comprising: recording, for each trace, the coordinates of the corresponding source-receiver couple (S a1 , R a1 ), later regrouping all the source-receiver couples into iso-path trace collections, where each collection regroups traces whose seismic paths are identical or similar, characterized in that it consists in positioning on a decimation grid (D), divided into cells, the source-receiver couple that corresponds to each trace, where the positioning phase of the source-receiver couples of each trace consists for each trace in: locating the source cell of the decimation grid (D) in which the source (S a ) of the acquired trace is located, recording the coordinates (x, y) of the four nodes (S 1 , S 2 , S 3 , S 4 ) of said cell, locating the receiver cell of the decimation grid in which the receiver (R a ) of the acquired trace is located, recording the coordinates (x, y) of the four nodes (R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 4 ) of said cell and, organizing the traces in each iso-path collection and selecting the first trace in each iso-path collection, where the regrouping phase of the source-receiver couples in collections of iso-path traces consists in: calculating for each trace, the corresponding offset (S a -R a ) and azimuth (Ø a ) using the acquisition coordinates, putting each node of the source cell in relation with each node of the receiver cell, where the sixteen combinations obtained (S 1 R 1 , S 1 R 2 ,S 1 R 3 , S 1 R 4 , S 2 R 1 , . . . , S 4 R 3 ,S 4 R 4 ) represent all the fictitious source-receiver couples close to the acquired couple (S a , R a ), calculating for each of said sixteen combinations, the corresponding offset (S n -R m ) and azimuth (Ø SnRm ), extracting from the sixteen couples (S a R m , Ø SnRm ) thus obtained the one that is closest to the real trace (S a R a ) and performing the same operations as above with all the acquired traces whose source and receiver are respectively located in the same source cell and receiver cell, so as to create iso-path collections.