The surface-related multiple elimination (SRME) method has proven to be successful on a large number of data cases. Most of the applications are still 2D, as the full 3D implementation is still expensive and under development. However, the earth is a 3D medium, such that 3D effects are difficult to avoid. Most of the 3D effects come from diffractive structures, whereas the specular reflections normally have less of a 3D behavior. By separating the seismic data in a specular reflecting and a diffractive part, multiple prediction can be carried out with these different subsets of the input data, resulting in several categories of predicted multiples. Because each category of predicted multiples can be subtracted from the input data with different adaptation filters, a more flexible SRME procedure is obtained. Based on some initial results from a Gulf of Mexico dataset, the potential of this approach is investigated.

In this abstract, we present a novel primary-multiple separation scheme which makes use of the sparsity of both primaries and multiples in a transform domain, such as the curvelet transform, to provide estimates of each. The proposed algorithm utilizes seismic data as well as the output of a preliminary step that provides (possibly) erroneous predictions of the multiples. The algorithm separates the signal components, i.e., the primaries and multiples, by solving an optimization problem that assumes noisy input data and can be derived from a Bayesian perspective. More precisely, the optimization problem can be arrived at via an assumption of a weighted Laplacian distribution for the primary and multiple coefficients in the transform domain and of white Gaussian noise contaminating both the seismic data and the preliminary prediction of the multiples, which both serve as input to the algorithm.

In this abstract, we present a nonlinear curvelet-based sparsitypromoting formulation for the primary-multiple separation problem. We show that these coherent signal components can be separated robustly by explicitly exploting the locality of curvelets in phase space (space-spatial frequency plane) and their ability to compress data volumes that contain wavefronts. This work is an extension of earlier results and the presented algorithms are shown to be stable under noise and moderately erroneous multiple predictions.

Incomplete data represents a major challenge for a successful prediction and subsequent removal of multiples. In this paper, a new method will be represented that tackles this challenge in a two-step approach. During the first step, the recenly developed curvelet-based recovery by sparsity-promoting inversion (CRSI) is applied to the data, followed by a prediction of the primaries. During the second high-resolution step, the estimated primaries are used to improve the frequency content of the recovered data by combining the focal transform, defined in terms of the estimated primaries, with the curvelet transform. This focused curvelet transform leads to an improved recovery, which can subsequently be used as input for a second stage of multiple prediction and primary-multiple separation.

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