Creating an Angle Mute

Angle mute uses ray tracing and a velocity model to generate mute based on the calculated angles of the seismic wave path. A gather volume and a velocity model are required to define the angle mute.

Available in: Explorationist and Gather Attributes modules.

Create an angle mute

Create an angle mute
  1. In the Control Panel, open the View menu and select Gather View.
  2. Select the gather volume to be displayed in the view.
  3. In the Control Panel, open the Mute tab.
  4. At the tab header, click the Add icon and select New Angle Mute.
  5. Type a name for the process and click OK.

Note: You can also create new Angle Mutes in the Process tab in the Control Panel. In the Process tab, click the Add icon and select New Process. Next, click Angle Mute. Note that once you have selected this process, the system will automatically switch to the Mute tab and let you configure the settings.

Define settings for angle mute

Define settings for angle mute
  1. In the Details Panel, select a Velocity Volume to be used in this process. Both 2D and 3D velocity volumes can be used in angle mute. If no velocity is selected, an angle-domain mute will be created. Specify a velocity to apply it to offset gathers.
  2. Select the Velocity type from available options including: 
    • Interval Velocity (Time)
    • Interval Velocity (Depth)
    • RMS Velocity
    • Depth values sampled in Time (ZT)
    • Time values sampled in Depth (TZ)
    • Average Velocity in Time
    • Average Velocity Converted to Depth.
  3. Choose the appropriate Velocity Units for the angle mute.
  4. The velocity model should already be smooth, but additional Vertical Smoothing can be applied if necessary. If a smoothing length is specified, the interval velocity is smoothed using a simple moving-window average.
  5. Surface horizon: Specify a horizon from which the mute can begin. This option is currently only supported for interval velocities in depth. For application in the depth domain, the angle mute will start at the horizon depth, using only the velocities below the surface horizon. If applied in the time domain, the surface horizon will be treated as time = 0.
  6. At Inner/Outer Angle, input the angle for the inner and outer mutes, with acceptable values ranging between 0 and 90 degrees. As soon as you enter an angle value, the calculated mute will be displayed in the Gather View as a dashed line in the colour and line thickness of your choice. The specified angle is traced through the velocity, using a curved-ray algorithm.
  7. Optionally, specify an Inner Angle Protection and/or Outer Angle Protection to restrict the mute to above or below a certain offset.
    • Inner Angle Protection: Offsets above this value will not be muted by the inner angle mute
    • Outer Angle Protection: Offsets below this value will not be muted by the outer angle mute
  8. Select your preferred colour and thickness for the mute line at Line.

Note: In some complex situations, it may not be possible to display a single contiguous mute curve boundary, in which case it is displayed as a series of dots instead of a contiguous dashed line.

For example, a mute using an unsmoothed velocity model with velocity inversions or without mute function smoothing might be displayed as dots whereas a smooth velocity model with mute function smoothing may be displayed as a dashed line.