SWD data migration with regularization of illumination in the angle domain

Kirchhoff depth migration is generally regarded as a powerful method of imaging 3D prestack surface seismic data. Recently, more effort has been devoted to adapting Kirchhoff depth migration to SWD data. This kind of acquisition frequently contains a limited number of sources and receivers. This produces an irregular illumination of the subsurface and very strong migration artifacts will appear when using the common migration procedure for such data. We describe an approach of true amplitude Kirchhoff migration in scattering angle, based on a multi-angle regularization of illumination. The scattering angle replaces the surface related acquisition coordinates. The regularization of illumination is done in the multidimensional domain of scattering angles and illumination dip angles. In this way we are able to control and to reduce the migration artefacts. We apply the procedure to realistic examples with SWD geometries.