The objective of our beamforming research is to locate massive sulfide bodies that scatter seismic waves and to significantly decrease the cost of location compared to 3-D seismic surveying. The basic process is to break up the diffraction hyperbola into segments that approximate plane waves and then beamform to determine the angle of emergence of the segment. The angles are then used as takeoff angles for raytracing to backproject the segment. The intersections of the rays locate the scattering source.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example of a synthetic diffraction divided into 20 segments that satisfy the plane-wave criteria. Moffat (2004).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Details of segments 1, 11 and 20.