Data processing of hydroacoustic data as support to mapping and characterization of seafloor

Abstract

This work aims to present a processing flow designed for shallow seismic data acquired in the northern continental shelf of Rio Grande do Norte State, adjacent to Areia Branca city. This area was choose because of the presence of an important incised-valley system, between depths of 15 m to 25m. The understanding of the formation and cenozoic filling of incised valleys has contributed more and more to studies with similar reservoirs of oil and gas. The data were acquired with a sub-bottom profiler type chirp, using small boats. The signal penetration reached approximately 45m with subsurface water depths of up to 40m. During activities were acquired information of parameterization software acquisition, software and processing tools. All data were integrated with GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Processing consisted in the adaptation of coordinate system, spectral analysis, optimization of the process of removing the water depth, application of low-pass filters and FK, according to the need of each section and bathymetric correction. The results revealed a smoothing effect of the waves, noise attenuation and multiple best contrasting the different types of reflectors thus enabling the identification of different seism facies in existing sections.