Dedicated workshops on simultaneous sourcing and/or deblending have not featured in any society calendars for some time. Clearly these two topics go together – acquisition and processing – so we are focusing this workshop on the interaction of the two. Now is an appropriate time to come together, to discuss progress and what is left to be done. Our friend and colleague Kang Fu, who sadly passed away last year, worked at the interface of novel acquisition and inversion deblending solutions. Through the workshop we will remember Kang and the benefits that curiosity, innovation and working together can bring to such difficult problems.

The methodology of simultaneous sourcing and deblending is quite old now, 25 years and counting. However, these techniques are still not used by everyone everywhere and there remain concerns over their basic robustness, the fidelity of 'separated' signal, and potential noise contamination. Are we stuck with a compromise between cost and quality or are we really achieving faster, cheaper, better data? Our goals for the workshop are to review where we are, where we've come from, discuss latest advances and outstanding challenges, such as higher blending fold, smaller sources, self-similar interference, 4D applications, random/irregular versus scheduled/regular source timing strategies, land versus marine, noise attenuation or inversion, etc. Please come along to learn, share, and join the discussion for advancing acceptance and understanding.