Modeling the near-surface using high-resolution seismic

To accurately image land seismic data, especially those acquired in the Arabian Peninsula, we need to correct for the topography and the complexity of the near surface weathering layers. Conventional methods like refraction and residual statics, and even tomostatics methods, have failed in many areas in the Arabian Peninsula. This is mainly because, the near-surface is more complex than the simplified model assumed by these methods. Moreover, large part of the near-surface falls within the near-field region of the conventional, low-resolution, wavefield. Thus, we assess the possibility of using high-resolution shallow seismic techniques as a tool to build the shallow velocity model. Through numerical modeling we show that a reasonably accurate shallow velocity model can be obtained from applying conventional horizon-based velocity analysis on the high resolution data. The model proved to be effective in correcting the conventional deep seismic image using either the simple statics shift or wave-equation datuming.