Fast sparse Bayesian learning-based seismic resolution enhancement

Seismic high resolution processing plays a crucial role in seismic interpretation and reservoir characterization. However, the low and high frequency of seismic signal are lost owing to the effects of earth filtering and diffraction. The missing of low-frequency increases the energy of wavelet side lobe, which not only enhances the interference with adjacent events, but also lead to side lobe artifacts. High frequency attenuation is more serious, which significantly reduces the seismic resolution. In addition, the current resolution enhancement methods are difficult to achieve desirable result in noise contaminated environment. A novel resolution enhancement method that extends high and low frequencies simultaneously and improves the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) under the framework of sparse decomposition theory is proposed. Firstly, an over-complete dictionary is constructed using non-zero phase Ricker wavelet and then the effective seismic signal is extracted by sparse decomposition using the fast sparse Bayesian learning (FSBL) algorithm. Secondly, the effective frequency range of the seismic signal is determined through a series of atoms obtained by sparse decomposition. Then, a desired broadband spectrum can be identified depending on this range. By approximating the broadband spectrum of seismic data, the weak high-frequency information can be extended. Furthermore, a correction term is introduced in frequency domain to suppress the side lobes of atoms. The side lobes are well suppressed without distorting the main lobe, meanwhile, both the low and high frequencies are extended. Finally, the validity of this method is verified by synthetic and field data. The results show that this method has better performance than the ordinary deconvolution and spectral whitening methods in processing high resolution data.