Passive seismic imaging in the presence of white noise sources: numerical simulations

Summary Passive seismic imaging is based on the relation between the reection and the transmission responses of the subsurface. By cross-correlating the transmission responses of a 3-D inhomogeneous medium in the presence of white noise sources, measured at points A and B, one can simulate the reection response of the same medium as if measured at point A in the presence of an impulsive source at point B. In this paper we show by numerical simulations that the received reection response strongly depends on the whiteness of the sources. Reectors present beneath the noise sources cause some ghost events to appear. Random distribution of the noise sources weakens these ghost reections.