Paper Summary

A joint contractor-company project was undertaken to evaluate the practicality and utility of shallow high resolution reprocessing of large deepwater exploration 3D seismic surveys. An approximately 575 square mile subset of a regional Mississippi Canyon survey in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico was selected and the upper six seconds of the dataset was reprocessed with focus on maximizing resolution in the shallow, usually suprasalt, sediment column. The intent was to not create new technology, but to utilize advances in computing power to cost effectively create a large regional 3D survey suitable for enhancing the ability to interpret and characterize the deepwater shallow overburden. The result was the creation of a high quality 3D dataset used extensively for shallow hazard analysis, shallow water flow unit characterization, and regional geologic interpretation.