Advanced Marine Seismic Acquisition Techniques

Instructor:  Dr. Mike Branston (WesternGeco, London, United Kingdom)

Course description

The course is designed to familiarize the student with the latest developments in Marine Seismic Acquisition including Wide-Azimuth with its many geometry variants, Broadband techniques (boosting the high and low frequencies), seabed receivers for both P-wave and Converted-wave recording, simultaneous source acquisition, and methodologies to improve efficiency. 

The course starts with an overview of conventional 3D towed streamer seismic acquisition and then concentrates on recent advances that have enabled dramatic improvements in seismic data quality and interpretability. While the development of 3D marine seismic acquisition since the 1980s has been arguably the single most effective technique in improved drilling success, the recent addition of "true 3D" or "wide-azimuth" techniques has led to improved sub-surface illumination and imaging. In addition to improved imaging, improved resolution has been achieved through so-called broadband techniques achieved through novel source and streamer geometries and multi-component receivers. The course compares wide-azimuth towed streamer seismic acquisition as well as sea-bed seismic acquisition, ocean bottom cable (OBC) and ocean bottom node (OBN). Design and practical implementation considerations are reviewed; together with relative cost-benefits. In the case of sea-bed seismic, the value of multi-component recording is reviewed. Broadband seismic techniques are explained in terms of source and receiver design, practical implementation and interpretational benefits. The course reviews the latest developments in simultaneous source technology, which are attempting to improve the data density and / or operational efficiency of seismic acquisition. Finally the course reviews the other operational methodologies and designs that have been developed to improve acquisition efficiency.