BJV Design Inc.’s Post

Peter I. Pecholcs makes a good point that there are many instances in seismic acquisition and processing where a cool method works really well in one or a few cases but then not in many other cases. If you make judgement on the one or few cases, you may have deceived yourself. This is why I like working for a processing company where we see much data. Land seismic data varies a great amount in many ways. And there is much to be learned when a process works well in a few cases. The challenge is finding methods and concepts that work more reliably for different data in many cases.

Very pleased to see GeoExpro publish an insightful article by my long-time friend and colleague, Richard Taylor, on a technology that has been central to my career and the cornerstone of my business: seismic vectorising. Despite being around for over 30 years, seismic vectorising remains underappreciated in our industry. Many professionals either overlook its potential, question its quality, or are uncertain about its legal implications. Yet, this technology has led to remarkable success stories. A standout example comes from the time when Richard and I worked together at Seiscan Geodata Ltd. and we were contracted by Cairn Energy to vectorise a significant amount of legacy seismic data from an Indian concession previously abandoned. The results were nothing short of spectacular—leading to major discoveries that benefited both Cairn and India. This case exemplifies the incredible value of revisiting and reinterpreting old data. Scepticism about reconstructed seismic often stems from past experiences with subpar implementations, particularly when a primitive software application fails to capture the full dynamic range of the data. This occurs with algorithms designed to only detect the positive-going, infilled peaks, ignoring the wiggle part of the trace. Ensuring your contractor uses full-waveform tracking technology is crucial for obtaining high-quality, reliable results. On the legal front, the counter-intuitive status of vectorised data might surprise some. Once vectorised, the SEG-Y output is legally yours, as it is considered a new creation distinct from the original data. In my experience, there has never been a serious or successful legal challenge to this. The series of numbers that constitute the output file resemble those of the original plot file only by statistical co-incidence. When plotted it may look precisely the same as the scanned section image, but legally it is something completely different. Vectorised data offers a cost-effective solution with vast potential for reconnaissance, planning new surveys, and even guiding decisions on purchasing new multi-client data. As Richard aptly notes, there's immense value in maximizing what we already have. Let's continue to explore and harness this powerful technology.

"Before any fancy workflows can be applied to digital seismic data, it first needs to be available in a digital format. And there is a lot of seismic data that is only available on paper, because digital records have either been lost or deteriorated to a point they can not be read any more." Today, Richard Taylor from Petroscan Limited writes about vectorising seismic data. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eDjzAuiT

Mind Map of Seismic Data,Acquisition ,QC,processing and interpretation

Even with limited information about the subsurface, there are cases where modelling can play an important role in in the seismic workflow. Here is a link to a case study showcasing ray based modelling with minimum subsurface data. https://lnkd.in/dkR-cSTD

The concepts of Spherical Divergence and Gain Recovery in seismic data processing

The CORRECT workflow for acquiring seismic data must always begin with a SEISMIC SURVEY DESIGN. Completing a seismic survey design PRIOR to a seismic cost estimate, will help ensure that the resulting seismic will reach the companies imaging objectives.

The CORRECT workflow for acquiring seismic data must always begin with a SEISMIC SURVEY DESIGN. Completing a seismic survey design PRIOR to a seismic cost estimate, will help ensure that the resulting seismic will reach the companies imaging objectives.

Once we have a basic understanding of the existing seismic data, it is time to determine any limiting factors that the data may have on our survey design analysis results. Examples of these limiting factors can include: 1. Coarse parameters with poor spatial sampling under estimating the maximum resolution potential of a new project area 2. Vintage seismic data using old technology that may under estimate the maximum resolution possible 3. A limited offset recording patch may prevent the determination of maximum useable offsets for our target zone Understanding all possible limiting factors in the existing data is critical to a successful seismic survey design.

The final step of parameter selection in seismic survey design is to OPTIMIZE each of the 4 components that we discussed this week (Source Interval/Receiver Interval, Receiver Line Interval/Source Line Interval, Recording Patch, Source Type/Source Parameters). The PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION process is iterative in that it looks at how we can acquire the seismic program using the results of the 4-component analysis discussed this week as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible by MINIMIZING TIME IN THE FIELD and the ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT.