Process for creating image gathers

Abstract

The process of obtaining seismic data includes deploying a seismic energy source and seismic receivers, actuating the source, and detecting seismic energy resulting therefrom at the receivers. The process further includes digitally sampling seismic energy detected at the receivers indexed with respect to time to form a plurality of traces and sorting the traces to form a plurality of shot gathers. In addition, the process includes applying a depth migration technique to the shot gathers to generate two images according to the cross-correlation imaging condition (I) and the gradient-based imaging condition (I) for each shot gather. A reflection angle (θ) or a general domain parameter (α) is computed at each subsurface position and the images are mapped according to the corresponding reflection angle or the general domain parameter to form common image gathers. Amplitude correction is applied to common image gathers and the images and common image gathers are stored on non-transitory computer-readable media.