Improving passive seismic surface-wave dispersion measurement deteriorated by strong fixed-frequency interference in the industry environment

Abstract The passive seismic surface-wave method utilizing ambient noise has gained widespread adoption for imaging near-surface shear-wave velocity (Vs) structures. However, conventional ambient noise processing workflows frequently fail to generate satisfactory surface-wave dispersion spectra in certain industrial settings where strong fixed-frequency interference (FFI) from mechanical operations persists. In this study, we propose a new data processing workflow incorporating data filtering based on singular value decomposition (SVD), seismic interferometry, and coherence-based virtual shot gather (VSG) enhancement to effectively mitigate FFI-induced distortions. Validation through synthetic testing demonstrates the workflow's superior performance in generating enhanced VSGs and higher-quality surface-wave dispersion spectra compared to conventional seismic interferometry approaches. The proposed workflow is also applied to a field dataset with two arrays deployed in a coal mining environment, where strong FFI is generated by the ventilation shafts. The field data application shows that the proposed workflow has effectively mitigated the effect of the FFI and produced clearer and more continuous fundamental mode dispersion energy. Therefore, our proposed workflow is effective for conducting passive seismic surveys in the increasingly complex scenarios affected by the FFI.