An examination of tube wave noise in vertical seismic profiling data

Tube waves act as noise that camouflages upgoing and downgoing body wave events which are the fundamental seismic data measured in vertical seismic profiling (VSP). In two onshore vertical seismic profiles, the principal source of tube waves is shown to be surface ground roll that sweeps across the well head. Secondary tube wave sources revealed in these VSP data are the downhole geophone tool itself and the bottom of the borehole. Body wave signals are also shown to create tube waves when they arrive at significant impedance contrasts in the borehole such as changes in casing diameter. Computer simulated vertical geophone arrays are used to reduce these tube waves, but such arrays attenuate and filter body wave events unless static time shifts are made so that the body wave signal occurs at the same two‐way time at each geophone station. Consequently, actual downhole vertical geophone arrays are not an effective means by which tube waves can be eliminated. Power spectra comparisons of tube wave and compressional body wave events demonstrate that band‐pass filters designed to eliminate tube waves also suppress body wave signals. A simple but effective field technique for reducing tube waves is shown to be proper source offset. Using velocity filters to retrieve upgoing compressional events from VSP data heavily contaminated with tube wave noise yields in one example an agreement with surface measured reflections that is superior to that obtained from synthetic seismograms calculated from log data recorded in the same well.