Seismic Applications For Mining Using Passive Sources

The seismic reflection exploration method has shown its superiority for imaging subsurface structures with high spatial resolution. A typical exploration application is with receivers at the surface that record propagating waves caused by active sources also at the surface. 

This method is being applied, and lately becoming more and more popular, for mining exploration at existing or new fields. But utilization of active sources is not always possible or even desirable due to their potential damaging footprint on the surrounding environment. 

Thus, an alternative that uses passive recordings, for example ambient seismic noise, and still produces active-source-like reflection recordings is very desirable. Such a method is seismic interferometry. With this method, new seismic responses are retrieved at the positions of receivers from virtual sources also at the positions of the receivers. 

I will show several applications of the method for retrieval of reflection arrivals from ambient noise recorded at mining fields, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.

Deyan Draganov

Deyan Draganov is an Associate Professor at the section of Applied Geophysics and Petrophysics at the Department of Geoscience and Engineering at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands). He obtained his PhD (cum laude) in 2007. His expertise lies in the theory and application of seismic interferometry from ultrasonics, through near-surface and exploration, to global scales. 

He was giving a two-day course on seismic interferometry as part of the continuing-education curriculum for professionals for the SEG. Since 2004, Draganov’s research has resulted in 63 published papers, one book publication, and four book chapters. 

In 2010, Draganov received the J. Clarence Karcher Award from SEG. Draganov was awarded VENI in 2007 (08115) and VIDI in 2012 (864.11.009) personal grants by the Dutch science foundation NWO. From 2006 till 2017, he served as Associate Editor for Geophysics and from 2017 to 2019 as an Assistant Editor for Geophysics. He is a member of SEG and EAGE.