Elastic modeling-based three-component VSP coordinate reorientation

Vertical Seismic Profile (VSP) surveys rely on three-component (3C) geophones to acquire high-resolution data at target reservoirs. These 3C geophones are comprised of three independent receivers, mounted orthogonally. When inside the borehole, the orientation of each 3C geophone is unknown. To enhance image stacking power from different receivers, it is necessary to reorient all the 3C VSP receivers to a common coordinate system. We introduce a VSP coordinate reorientation workflow using elastic finite-difference modeling. The only condition required is an adequate knowledge of the overburden velocity. Since VSPs today are typically acquired to supplement existing surface seismic images, adequate velocity models already exist and this method can almost always be applied effectively. We conduct synthetic tests to demonstrate the robustness of our workflow in a variety of noise levels, velocity errors, and acquisition coverages. We also show a real data example from the deep water Gulf of Mexico (GoM).