A seismic trace may be represented as the sum of a signal and noise series. Each of the series may further be represented by convolution of a finite wavelet and a random series. With this representation, and provided that the signal and noise are uncorrelated, it is possible, in theory, to extract signal and noise statistics from two adjacent traces of a reflection seismogram. Some experiments are shown on model seismic traces, and it is shown that within the time‐duration of the seismic wavelet, the estimates of signal and noise statistics are reasonable for low signal‐to‐noise ratio. There remains, however, the problem of determining the optimum time lengths of the estimates.