The dominant feature on the landscape for exploration geophysics remains the
tough economic climate that our industry is experiencing. However, despite oil
prices recently topping $40.00 per barrel, commodity pricing for metals and
minerals hitting similar highs, and increasing concerns about the environmental
impact to the near-surface, commercial activity in applied geophysics remains
steady, and technology advancements continue at a rapid pace.
Perhaps the most exciting current arena is that of deepwater basins around the
world. An emerging theme in deepwater exploration is the need to provide near-constant
(or on-demand) seismic reservoir imaging. This need, in turn, is driving algorithmic
and computer science research and development to enable the processing and delivery
of data in near real-time.
A second aspect of the deepwater play involves the need to image around, beneath
and through salt bodies, which requires depth migration. Commercial applications
of depth migration began to grow rapidly in the 1990s and have continued to
evolve apace.
Another significant trend in the marine environment is the move towards high-fidelity
data both in terms of the acquisition equipment itself and in survey design
and data processing. Repeat seismic techniques (4-D seismic) not only are important
in the context of the critical deepwater basins, but also are key in many production
environments. The low strength of the 4-D signal (defined as the difference
between multiple towed conventional 3-D surveys) requires high-fidelity data.
Moreover, complex geology and subtle seismic expression of facies are better
imaged by high-fidelity data. The need for resolution has driven the development
of more accurate navigation and positioning hardware and software. Moreover,
there is a demonstrated need in 4-D seismic to be able to accurately repeat
the positioning of sources and receivers in each repeated survey. To this end,
applied geophysicists have developed so-called steerable seismic streamers that
can impart as much as a 3-degree correction to the normal, or unaided, path
of the streamer. Achieving this technology, long considered the holy grail of
marine seismic research, is a great step for the community.
Resolution is an issue in land seismic data as well. One of the challenges with
high-resolution land data is to take advantage of the benefits of arrays to
cancel high-amplitude noise such as ground roll, while at the same time retaining
the benefits of dense sampling. Development of numerical algorithms that handle
single sensor data in this manner is proving useful in this regard. These technologies
are coming into use to better image the all-important reservoirs of the Middle
East and will likely soon spread to other provinces.
These examples are only a sampling of the exciting developments occurring in
traditional surface seismic exploration and development applications. There
are also new applications in other areas. For example, surface electromagnetic
surveys are being used for direct hydrocarbon detection.
Using both the magneto-telluric method as well as a controlled electromagnetic
source, companies are reporting successes in deepwater marine environments in
combining electromagnetic data with other subsurface information to reduce risk
in exploration drilling. And electromagnetic surveys are breaking ground in
difficult mountainous terrain where surface seismic is problematic at best.
On the horizon, researchers are conducting work to extend near-surface and potential
field methods for use in exploring Mars.
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