  Unveiling meaningful geophysical information from seismic data requires to
deal with both random and structured "noises". As their amplitude may be
greater than signals of interest (primaries), additional prior information is
especially important in performing efficient signal separation. We address here
the problem of multiple reflections, caused by wave-field bouncing between
layers. Since only approximate models of these phenomena are available, we
propose a flexible framework for time-varying adaptive filtering of seismic
signals, using sparse representations, based on inaccurate templates. We recast
the joint estimation of adaptive filters and primaries in a new convex
variational formulation. This approach allows us to incorporate plausible
knowledge about noise statistics, data sparsity and slow filter variation in
parsimony-promoting wavelet frames. The designed primal-dual algorithm solves a
constrained minimization problem that alleviates standard regularization issues
in finding hyperparameters. The approach demonstrates significantly good
performance in low signal-to-noise ratio conditions, both for simulated and
real field seismic data.
