Patent ID: 7545704

Claim:
A computer readable medium storing program instructions for analyzing seismic data, wherein the program instructions are executable by one or more processors to: receive two-dimensional (2-D) seismic data from a formation, wherein the 2-D seismic data comprises a plurality of 2-D seismic lines, wherein at least a subset of the plurality of 2-D seismic lines have an interline spacing of 200 meters or more; for each hypothetical diffractor location of a plurality of hypothetical diffractor locations, search at least a subset of the 2-D seismic data for coherent diffraction arrivals that are consistent with the hypothetical diffractor location, wherein the plurality of hypothetical diffractor locations correspond to the points of a three-dimensional grid that spans a volume of at least a portion of the formation; and store information regarding each of the plurality of hypothetical diffractor locations that have coherent diffraction arrivals consistent with the hypothetical diffractor location; wherein an image is created from the stored information.