Review of Seismic Interferometry

Abstract

We review seismic interferometry with an example of a numerical simulation. A cross- correlation of two seismic records at different receivers yields a virtual source record that corre- sponds to the seismic response observed at one receiver due to the source at another receiver lo- cation. By changing the combination of cross-correlations, as many virtual source records as the number of receivers used in an observation can be generated. Synthesized virtual source records have useful information for subsurface imaging or characterization of the Earth. Using this technique, we can use background seismic noise as a signal, and we can investigate the subsur- face with controlled sources and an ingenious deployment of receivers adapted to the environ- ment of a target field. By optimizing of data acquisition and processing method for the virtual source record, seismic interferometry can be widely applied to interesting problems in the Earth science.