Patent ID: 8325559

Claim:
A method of processing seismic data, the seismic data obtained using a plurality of towed receivers in a marine environment, the towed receivers configured to measure compressional P waves, comprising: retrieving seismic data from a storage device using a processing circuit, the seismic data comprising P-P data and shear mode data, wherein the P-P data and shear mode data were both received at the towed receivers without the presence of co-located horizontal single-component receivers; processing the seismic data to extract SV-P shear mode data using the processing circuit, wherein the processing comprises extrapolating wavefields represented by the seismic data downward to computationally create virtual sources and virtual receivers on a seafloor in the vicinity of an area imaged by the seismic data; and generating shear mode image data based on the extracted shear mode data using the processing circuit.