Although the requirement for accurate timing of both the sources and receivers used for land seismic data acquisition has long been known, the numerical requirement for, and impact of, timing accuracy on data quality is poorly defined. In this paper we derive a method for determining the theoretical timing requirement for data acquisition. We then demonstrate the impact of poorly timed data on data quality and examine our ability to remove timing errors in data processing. Source timing variations can be corrected through the application of surface-consistent static correction but only if multiple shots have not been stacked during acquisition. Receiver timing variations are more problematic and the ability to correct for them relies on a sufficiently dense acquisition geometry.
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