BASEMENT IMAGING WITH SIDE-LOOKING SEISMICS

The multistreamer Side-Looking Seismic system presented in this paper makes a sonograph of uncovered or buried crustal topography, thus revealing the structural fabric of the oceanic basement, even when this is covered with a sedimentary layer. Major elements of the system are an airgun as a sound source, five single-channel parallel streamers and two minicomputers for signal capture and processing. The system is used simultaneously for enhanced single-channel seismic profiling and for side-looking seismics. A vertical section with an improved signal-to-noise ratio and a suppression of side-echoes is produced on a digital seismic recorder. In sediment-covered areas the low frequencies used cause the slanted profiles to be side-looking sonar images of buried topography. The projection process yielding final side-looking output corrects for slant range deformation caused by the water column and, if necessary, for deformation caused by refraction within the sedimentary column. Swath width is mainly determined by water depth and refraction effects in the sediment. Within the swath, oceanic basement structures are recognized in the form of elongate more or less parallel reflectors.