3D seismic residual statics solutions derived from refraction interferometry

We apply interferometric theory to solve a three-dimensional seismic residual statics problem to improve reflection imaging. The approach calculates the static solutions without picking the first arrivals from the shot or receiver gathers. The static correction accuracy can be significantly improved by utilising stacked virtual refraction gathers in the calculations. Shots and receivers may be placed at any position in a three-dimensional seismic land survey. Therefore, it is difficult to determine stationary shots and receivers to form the virtual refraction traces that have identical arrival times, as in a two-dimensional scenario. To overcome this problem, we use a three-dimensional super-virtual interferometry method for residual static calculations. The virtual refraction for a stationary shot/receiver pair is obtained via an integral along the receiver/shot lines, which does not require knowledge of the stationary locations. We pick the maximum energy times on the interferometric stacks and solve a set of linear equations to derive reliable residual static solutions. We further apply the approach to both synthetic and real data.