Study on the Deconvolution Method and Processing Flow of Airgun Source Data

With its high repeatability,the airgun source has been used to monitor the temporal variations of subsurface structures. However,under different working conditions,there will be subtle differences in the airgun source signals. To some extent,deconvolution can eliminate changes of the recorded signals due to source variations. Generally speaking,in order to remove the airgun source wavelet signal and obtain the Green's functions between the airgun source and stations,we need to select an appropriate method to perform the deconvolution process for seismic waveform data. Frequency domain water level deconvolution and time domain iterative deconvolution are two kinds of deconvolution methods widely used in the field of receiver functions,etc. We use the Binchuan( in Yunnan Province,China) airgun data as an example to compare the performance of these two deconvolution methods in airgun source data processing. The results indicate that frequency domain water level deconvolution is better in terms of computational efficiency;time domain iterative deconvolution is better in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio( SNR),and the initial motion of P-wave is also clearer. We further discuss the sequence issue of deconvolution and stack for multiple-shot airgun data processing. Finally,we propose a general processing flow for the airgun source data to extract the Green 's functions between the airgun source and stations.

A Comparative Study on the Excitation of Large Volume Airgun Source with Different Combinations in Hutubi,Xinjiang,China

In order to study the excitation of large-volume airgun source with different combinations in Hutubi,Xinjiang,China,we conducted a targeted experiment.The method of timefrequency analysis is used to study the signals recorded by a seismometer on the shore of the excited pool,and it is concluded that different gun combinations will lead to different frequency of bubble pulse signals.Besides,linear combination method is used to analyze the signal-to-noise ratios of signals excited by different gun combinations which was recorded by seismic stations around the airgun source.In order to improve the signal-tonoise ratios,it is more effective to increase the activation energy(the number of excited guns at the same time)than to stack the excited signals with smaller energy repeatedly.

Illuminating high-resolution crustal fault zones using multi-scale dense arrays and airgun source

High-resolution imaging of fault zone structure and its temporal changes can not only advance our understanding of earthquake physics,but is also critical for better seismic hazard preparation and mitigation.In the past a few years,we deployed multi-scale dense arrays across the Chenghai fault system in Binchuan,Yunnan,China.The first array consisted of 381 intermediate-period three-component seismometers with an average station spacing of~2 km.The array has been deployed in the field for~3 months in 2017 and recorded numerous local and teleseismic earthquakes.Travel time analyses based on teleseismic earthquakes and an airgun source in the region indicated clear signature of low-velocity fault zones in the southern branch of the Chenghai fault system.In 2018 we deployed two other linear arrays using the same instruments with much smaller inter-station spacing,e.g.30-50 m,across the southern branch the Chenghai fault.The profile lengths were 8 and 5 km,respectively.Record sections of the airgun source on the two linear arrays clearly marked a low-velocity zone(LVZ)within the southern array but no such signature in the northern array,suggesting along-strike variation of the LVZ.Although the instruments within our dense arrays had an intermediate frequency band,we demonstrated that they were capable of characterizing crustal structure with techniques commonly applied to broadband signals such as receiver functions.To our best knowledge,this was the first time to have multi-scale across-fault dense arrays with three-component seismometers in such apertures.These results lay out the pavement to comprehensively investigate fault zone structures as well as to derive subsurface structural changes using dense arrays and the airgun source.

Comparative Study on Two Methods for Measuring Wave Velocity Change of Crustal Medium Based on Large Volume Airgun Excitation Data

This paper proposes the application of dynamic programming method to calculate the relative change of wave velocities and compares its similarities and differences with the cross-correlation delay estimation method based on interference.The results show that:①the trend of wave velocities obtained by cross-correlation method and dynamic programming method are consistent.Besides,it is considered that the calculated result using cross-correlation delay method is reliable.②Compared with the cross-correlation delay method,the calculated result of the dynamic programming method has a magnifying effect and is more sensitive to small disturbances.③Under ideal conditions,the wave velocity change trend calculated by P-wave and S-wave phase should be consistent.In addition,the cross-correlation delay method is used to calculate the wave velocity change.Under appropriate conditions,the process of recovering from the suspected wave velocity before the M_L1.1 earthquake near the airgun source can be observed.

Study on Azimuth Variation of Airgun Signal Propagation

Based on the data recorded by the observation network during the intensive excitation period from November to December 2015 at Binchuan Earthquake Signal Transmitting Seismic Station(BESTSS)in Yunnan Province,the noise in waveform recording is removed by S-transform template filtering method,and the azimuth of airgun signal propagation is calculated and analyzed from the horizontal waveform recordings.The results show that:①the azimuth angle of airgun signal after propagation is sensitive to stress change,and can clearly reflect the diurnal variation of tidal stress,which can be used to monitor the change of stress state in crustal medium;②the azimuth angle of airgun signal in some stations has changed abruptly after propagation on December 4,which may be related to the change of airgun source;③five-shot superposition or fivepoint smoothing of azimuth angle of single shot are carried out for airgun signals in stations far away from epicenter,and results show that azimuth angle from superposition or smoothing is more stable and has clear diurnal variation characteristics after propagation.

Attenuation Characteristics of Earthquake Ground Motion for Large Volume Airgun

In order to further deepen the understanding of seismic wave propagation characteristics induced by the large volume airgun source,experimental data from multiple fixed excitation points in Fujian Province were used to obtain the equivalent single excitation high signal-to-noise ratio velocity and displacement records through linear stacking and simulation techniques.Then the peak displacements of different epicentral distances were used to calculate the equivalent magnitude of the airgun source excitation at different fixed excitation points so as to establish the attenuation relationship between equivalent magnitude,epicenter distance and velocity peak.Our results show that:①Within 270 km of epicentral distance,for the large-volume airgun’s single shot,the peak velocity range is about 700-4 nm/s,and the peak displacement range is about 200.0-0.2 nm;②The equivalent magnitude of the P-wave from the airgun source with a total capacity of 8,000 in 3 is 0.181-0.760,and the equivalent magnitude of the S-wave is 0.294-0.832.By contrast,the equivalent magnitude of the P-wave from the airgun source with a total capacity of 12,000 in 3 is 0.533-0.896,and the equivalent magnitude of the S-wave is 0.611-0.946.The S-wave energy is greater than the P-wave energy,and the excitation efficiency varies greatly with different excitation environment;③The peak velocity increases with the equivalent magnitude,and decreases with the epicentral distance.The vertical component of the P-wave peak velocity is the largest among those three components,while the S-wave has the smallest vertical component and similar horizontal components.Hence,our research can provide an important basis for the quantitative judgment of the seismic wave propagation distance using the airgun and the design of the observation system in deep exploration or monitoring with airgun.