A comprehensive strategy for removing multiples and depth imaging primaries without subsurface information: Direct horizontal common image gathers without the velocity or "ironing"

In AVO (Amplitude Variation with Offset) analysis, the amplitudes of reflected waves with different incident angles are studied to deduce lithology information beyond the structure map obtained by seismic imaging algorithms. The quantitative analysis of the amplitude, relies on common-image gathers being flat (or equivalently, at the same depth). But the waves with different incident angles will have different apparent velocities, resulting in different depths for the same image point at different angles, or non-flat common image gathers. In many scenarios, non-flat common-image gather was flattened by trim means at the cost of compromising zero-crossing and polarity-reversal information. This work presents a solution based on the seismic imaging subseries of the inverse scattering series (ISS) that flattens the common image gather without knowing or determining the subsurface velocity, and without any harmful amplitude consequencies.