Imaging on Coal Seismic Data

Poststack imaging (migration) methods have been playing an important role in coal data processing for decades. However, results in applying poststack imaging processing to 3-D coal seismic data from a producing coal mine have low quality images. In order to obtain correct images, we present the strategy that applies the prestack Kirchhoff imaging method to the coal data. In this paper, we describe the implementation of prestack Kirchhoff time migration and the application to the coal seismic data. Meanwhile we derive the workflow of prestack Kirchhoff time migration processing according to the character of coal data. The processing sequences of the prestack Kirchhoff time migration are simplified effectively. It includes two steps: (1) the estimation of 3-D root mean square velocity field; (2) the prestack Kirchhoff time migration processing. In comparison to poststack migration, the application of prestack Kirchhoff time migration to coal seismic data results in much better imaging of reflections.