Offset Vector Tile gather extension and weighting to reduce footprint in dual-datum and converted-wave migration

A conventional CMP based COV binning will create footprint and migration noise for acquisitions where sources and receivers are at different depth levels and/or PS waves are imaged. The OVT muting & weighting technique is a way to overcome this problem. The OVT muting and weighting technique is a way to bin acquired seismic data in such a way that a uniform, or near uniform, illumination is obtained at all depth levels in the model beneath a certain given shallow depth level. The basic idea is to adjust the number of traces in a OVT gather and create a mute based on the depth- and offset dependent CMP-CRP difference computed by ray tracing. This will improve the CRP coverage considerably. This is done on pre-migration data and will create gathers that can be migrated by e.g. Kirchhoff migration. The method can be used for any acquisition technique but will be especially powerful for Ocean Bottom Cable (OBC) or Ocean Bottom Nodes (OBN) acquisitions. It can be used in both Kirchhoff time and depth migration.