Patent ID: 8428880

Claim:
A method of processing data obtained from seismic prospecting of an earth formation, comprising the steps of: obtaining data representing a multicomponent seismic signal from a multicomponent seismic receiver at a receiver location in an earth formation, in response to transmitting seismic waves into the earth formation; performing a wave-equation migration of the multicomponent seismic signal to obtain a seismic image of the earth formation, wherein the polarization of the seismic wave at the receiver location is taken into account; wherein: the step of performing a wave-equation migration comprises: a) obtaining a velocity model of the earth formation; b) determining, using the velocity model, a wave field generated by a dipole source at the receiver location, for a plurality of orientations of the dipole source, to obtain a plurality of source field components; c) determining, using the velocity model and the multicomponent seismic signal, a plurality of back-propagated wave field components; d) obtaining the seismic image from the multicomponent source field and the plurality of back-propagated wave field components; the source field components and the back-propagated wave field components each relate to a particular spatial dimension; and the seismic image value at a point in the earth formation is calculated from a sum of products of the source field component for a particular source orientation and the complex conjugated back propagated wave field component for the corresponding spatial dimension, summed over a plurality of spatial dimensions.