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arxiv: 2605.11109 · v1 · submitted 2026-05-11 · ⚛️ physics.geo-ph · cs.AI· cs.CV· cs.LG

Recognition: 2 theorem links

· Lean Theorem

Deploying Self-Supervised Learning for Real Seismic Data Denoising

Authors on Pith no claims yet

Pith reviewed 2026-05-13 00:52 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification ⚛️ physics.geo-ph cs.AIcs.CVcs.LG
keywords seismic data denoisingself-supervised learningNoisy-as-Cleanreal noise injectionfine-tuninggeneralizationnoise characteristics
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The pith

Adding real noise to noisy seismic inputs enables effective self-supervised denoising without clean references.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

This paper tests the Noisy-as-Clean self-supervised method on real seismic acquisitions that include both noisy recordings and filtered versions. It adapts the method to inject controlled real noise into the noisy inputs for training, then runs ten experiments comparing different deployment strategies against a supervised baseline using the same network. Results indicate that performance hinges on matching the injected noise to the actual noise present, that synthetic white Gaussian noise does not work well, and that self-supervised fine-tuning on test data improves outcomes while supervised fine-tuning does not. A reader would care because field seismic data rarely comes with clean reference traces, so methods that train directly on noisy field data could make denoising more practical.

Core claim

The central claim is that the Noisy-as-Clean SSL method, by adding real noise from the acquisition to the noisy input to form training pairs, delivers a feasible denoising solution for real seismic data. Across the controlled experiments, this approach outperforms training with synthetic additive white Gaussian noise, shows sensitivity to data characteristics and noise levels, and benefits from self-supervised fine-tuning on unseen test data, while remaining independent of the specific network architecture used.

What carries the argument

The Noisy-as-Clean (NaC) mechanism, which treats the observed noisy seismic trace as the target and adds controlled real noise extracted from the same acquisition to create training input-target pairs for a neural network denoiser.

If this is right

  • Matching the statistical properties of injected noise to the actual field noise is required for the method to succeed on seismic data.
  • Self-supervised models gain from fine-tuning directly on the target test set, whereas supervised models show no such gain.
  • Both the underlying seismic signal properties and the noise amplitude level affect how well any trained model performs.
  • The same network topology works for both the self-supervised and supervised comparisons, indicating the benefit is not tied to architecture choice.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • The method could lower the barrier to denoising in field settings where collecting paired clean data is expensive or impossible.
  • Similar noise-injection strategies might apply to other geophysical or time-series signals that lack clean references but have repeatable noise statistics.
  • Future checks could test whether the approach scales to 3D seismic volumes or to data with multiple overlapping noise sources.

Load-bearing premise

The filtered versions of the real seismic acquisitions serve as a sufficiently accurate stand-in for clean ground truth when scoring denoising performance.

What would settle it

Measuring denoising quality against independently recorded cleaner seismic traces or against synthetic data with known exact ground truth would show whether the reported gains hold under stricter reference conditions.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.11109 by Albino Aveleda, Alexandre G. Evsukoff, Andr\'e Bulc\~ao, Carlos E. M. dos Anjos, Claudio D. T. de Souza, Giovanny A. M. Arboleda, Lessandro de S. S. Valente, Pablo M. Barros, Roosevelt de L. Sardinha.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: The files were filtered by a dedicated processing workflow specifically designed for the mitigation of swell noise. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p003_1.png] view at source ↗
Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: Filtered (above) and Noisy (below) seismic data. (a) File 1A, (b) File 1B, (c) File 2A, and (d) File 2B. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p004_1.png] view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: FFT of the noise files (a) NOISE 1, (b) NOISE 2 [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p005_2.png] view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Figure 3: FCNN model with 5 layers. The parameters of the FCNN-5 model were adjusted by the L2 loss function, which yielded better results in preliminary tests, and is defined as: L(ui , vi) = 1 M X t∈ci (ui(t) − vi(t))2 , (9) where ui(t) is the target value and vi(t) is the prediction of the model obtained for each value of the crop ci , according to the learning approach, and M = 4.096 is the number of values in e… view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: Results for file data 1A: (a) SELF(1), (b) SELF(2)-TEST(1)-FT(1), (c) SUPERVISED(1), (d) [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p013_4.png] view at source ↗
Figure 5
Figure 5. Figure 5: Results for file data 2B: (a) SELF(2), (b) SELF(1)-TEST(2)-FT(2), (c) SUPERVISED(2), (d) [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p014_5.png] view at source ↗
read the original abstract

Self-supervised learning (SSL) has emerged as a promising approach to seismic data denoising as it does not require clean reference data. In this work, the deployment of the Noisy-as-Clean (NaC) method was evaluated for real seismic data denoising under controlled conditions. Two independent seismic acquisitions, each comprising noisy and filtered data, were organized into four real datasets. The NaC SSL method was adapted to add real noise to the noisy input, controlled by a parameter. An experimental protocol with ten experiments was designed to compare different strategies for deploying the NaC SSL method with the supervised learning baseline, using identical network topology and hyperparameters. The models were evaluated in terms of denoising performance, computational cost, and generalization capability. The results show that the synthetic additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is inadequate for the denoising of seismic data within the NaC method, and performance strongly depends on the compatibility between the injected and actual noise characteristics. Furthermore, both the characteristics of the seismic data and the noise level influence the performance of the model. Self-supervised fine-tuning on test data has improved SSL performance, whereas no such gain was observed for fine-tuning of supervised models. Finally, NaC has shown to be a simple, effective, and model-independent method that offers a feasible solution for the denoising of real seismic data.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

2 major / 1 minor

Summary. The manuscript evaluates the Noisy-as-Clean (NaC) self-supervised learning approach for denoising real seismic data. Using two independent acquisitions that each provide noisy and filtered versions, the authors construct four datasets and run a ten-experiment protocol that compares NaC variants (including real-noise injection controlled by a parameter and self-supervised fine-tuning) against supervised baselines that share the same network architecture and hyperparameters. They report that additive white Gaussian noise is inadequate, that performance depends on noise-characteristic compatibility and data properties, that SSL fine-tuning improves results while supervised fine-tuning does not, and conclude that NaC is a simple, effective, and model-independent solution for real seismic denoising.

Significance. If the evaluation methodology is strengthened, the work would offer practical guidance on deploying SSL where clean labels are unavailable in geophysics, underscoring the necessity of matching injected noise statistics to real noise and the value of test-time self-supervised adaptation. The controlled real-data protocol and direct SSL-versus-supervised comparison are useful contributions.

major comments (2)
  1. [Abstract and experimental protocol] Abstract and experimental protocol: performance is measured exclusively against the filtered versions of the two acquisitions treated as clean ground truth. No section quantifies residual noise remaining in those filtered traces, assesses whether the filter distorts coherent events, or validates that the real noise added during NaC training statistically matches the unseen test noise. Because both SSL and supervised models optimize to the same imperfect reference, reported gains may reflect matching the filter rather than recovering true signal.
  2. [Results section] Results section: the abstract and protocol description state that ten experiments were performed and that NaC is effective, yet supply no quantitative metrics (e.g., SNR, MSE, or structural similarity values), error bars, or statistical tests. Without these, the magnitude of any advantage over baselines or the effect of fine-tuning cannot be verified.
minor comments (1)
  1. [Abstract] The abstract would be strengthened by including at least one key quantitative result (with uncertainty) to support the final claim that NaC is effective.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the constructive comments, which highlight important aspects of our evaluation methodology. We address each major comment below and will revise the manuscript to incorporate the suggested improvements where feasible.

read point-by-point responses
  1. Referee: [Abstract and experimental protocol] Abstract and experimental protocol: performance is measured exclusively against the filtered versions of the two acquisitions treated as clean ground truth. No section quantifies residual noise remaining in those filtered traces, assesses whether the filter distorts coherent events, or validates that the real noise added during NaC training statistically matches the unseen test noise. Because both SSL and supervised models optimize to the same imperfect reference, reported gains may reflect matching the filter rather than recovering true signal.

    Authors: We acknowledge that the filtered versions are an approximation to clean ground truth, a standard practice in real seismic denoising where true clean references are unavailable. In the revised manuscript, we will add a new subsection discussing the filtering procedures used in the original acquisitions, their potential effects on coherent events, and the inherent limitations of this proxy. For the NaC noise injection, we will include statistical validations such as comparisons of power spectral densities and amplitude distributions between the injected real noise samples and the noise characteristics in the test sets to confirm compatibility. While absolute quantification of residual noise in the filtered traces is not possible without true clean data, the controlled protocol with independent acquisitions allows fair relative comparisons between SSL and supervised approaches, both evaluated against the same reference. This helps demonstrate that performance differences arise from the learning strategy rather than solely from filter matching. revision: partial

  2. Referee: [Results section] Results section: the abstract and protocol description state that ten experiments were performed and that NaC is effective, yet supply no quantitative metrics (e.g., SNR, MSE, or structural similarity values), error bars, or statistical tests. Without these, the magnitude of any advantage over baselines or the effect of fine-tuning cannot be verified.

    Authors: We apologize for not including the specific numerical results in the submitted manuscript. The ten experiments were evaluated using SNR, MSE, and structural similarity metrics. In the revision, we will add detailed tables reporting these quantitative values (including means and standard deviations across experiments), error bars, and appropriate statistical tests to clearly demonstrate the magnitude of improvements from the NaC variants and the differential effects of self-supervised versus supervised fine-tuning. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No circularity: purely empirical comparison with no derivations or self-referential reductions

full rationale

The manuscript describes an experimental protocol that adapts the existing NaC SSL method, trains models on real seismic acquisitions (noisy + filtered pairs), and reports performance metrics against the filtered versions as proxy ground truth. No equations, uniqueness theorems, or parameter-fitting steps are presented that reduce by construction to the inputs; the central claim rests on direct empirical comparisons between SSL and supervised baselines under controlled conditions. Self-citations, if present, are not load-bearing for any derivation. The evaluation protocol is self-contained and externally falsifiable via the reported metrics and datasets.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

This is an empirical machine-learning application study with no mathematical derivations, so the ledger contains no free parameters, axioms, or invented entities beyond standard neural-network training assumptions.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5600 in / 1191 out tokens · 44208 ms · 2026-05-13T00:52:03.823006+00:00 · methodology

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Reference graph

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