Method of marine seismic data acquisition

Abstract

A method of acquiring marine seismic data using an acoustic source to generate an acoustic signal, a portion of which is reflected at one or more subsurface formation interfaces as a seismic signal, includes: a) sailing a surface vessel along a sinusoidal sail line which lies over an area to be surveyed while towing one or more seismic streamers, each streamer including a plurality of hydrophones to receive the reflected seismic signals, where the streamer follows the sinusoidal sail line while seismic data is acquired. In one embodiment, the method further comprises b) dividing the area to be surveyed using a grid to form a plurality of bins; c) collating the seismic signals using the plurality of bins; and, d) repeating step a) to populate each bin with seismic data, where a range of offsets associated with each event varies between adjacent cross-line and in-line bins.