Articles
Geophysical research ROCKS at Canadian universities! – University of Saskatchewan
Jim Merriam
he geophysics group at the University of Saskatchewan, Sam Butler, Igor Morozov and Jim Merriam with seven graduate students, two technical support staff and emeriti, Don Gendzwill and Zoli Hajnal, are active in a number applied geophysics projects. Prof. Sam Butler’s research involves modelling continuum geophysical systems over lengths scales…
Geophysical research ROCKS at Canadian universities! – University of Victoria
Stan E. Dosso, Lucinda J. Leonard, Jan Dettmer, John F. Cassidy, Kelin Wang
Geophysical research at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria (UVic), is carried out by faculty, students, and an active group of adjunct faculty (many at the Pacific Geoscience Centre of the Geological Survey of Canada, PGC/GSC). Research topics are diverse, but many focus on various aspects…
Geophysical research ROCKS at Canadian universities! – Western University
Gail Atkinson
Western University has partnered with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Industry partners TransAlta and Nanometrics in the initiation of a 5-year, $3.5 million multi-institutional collaborative research program on Induced Seismicity Processes and Hazards (2014 to 2019). Collaborating institutions include the University of Calgary, the University…
Joint Inversion of Multiphysics Data for Petrophysical and Engineering Properties
Aria Abubakar
A variety of measurements may illuminate the reservoir with varying coverage and resolution such as: electromagnetic (EM); controlled-source EM (CSEM); magnetotelluric (MT), surface-to-borehole EM (STB-EM); crosswell EM; seismic (surface seismic, crosswell seismic, and VSP); gravity (surface and borehole); and production history/well testing data. The interpretation of each measurement on its…
A Comparison of Trenched Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) to Trenched and Surface 3C Geophones – Daly, Manitoba, Canada
Rob Kendall
In the fall of 2012 we conducted a field test of a trenched fibre optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) system to trenched and surface 3C geophones in the Daly area of southwestern Manitoba, Canada. The test was designed to provide a comparison of the acoustic wavefield as measured by the…
3D VSP in an Unconventional Setting: Images, Anisotropy, Q, Multiples and Full Waveform Inversion
A. Campbell, S. Leaney, J. Gulati, O. Podgornova, J. Leslie-Panek, E. Von Lunen
A comprehensive seismic project including conventional and multi-component surface seismic and borehole seismic was acquired in a producing field in northeast British Columbia, Canada. Delineating productive zones within the fractured shale reservoir was the primary goal of the seismic recorded in the project. The borehole seismic includes a conventional P-wave…
Acquiring Low Frequencies Onshore: Sweep, Sensors, Sampling and Stories
Olivier Winter, Anna Leslie, Forest Lin and Peter Maxwell
The authors discuss the generation of low frequency onshore seismic exploration. Seismic vibrator sources, geophone and MEMS accelerometer sensor properties are discussed. This is followed by a brief discussion of processing implications outlining the need for some precautions to take in order to preserve the broadband characteristics. Several case studies…
Lithology Discrimination Using Elastic Rock Properties and Simultaneous Seismic Inversion in the Leduc Reservoir, NE Alberta
Elahe P. Ardakani, Tom J. Podivinsky and Douglas R. Schmitt
AVO attributes (elastic rock properties) crossplotting and simultaneous seismic inversion are used in an integrated approach to discriminate dolostone from limestone lithologies in the carbonate Leduc bitumen reservoir located in northeastern Alberta. The profile sections of density, compressional and shear impedance are generated through the simultaneous seismic inversion procedure. The…
Optimizing Hydrocarbon Recovery In Organic-Rich Reservoirs
Cristian H. Malaver
The search for hydrocarbons in tight reservoirs has become an integral part of the portfolio for oil and gas companies these days. Predicting reservoir quality indicators from tight facies such as organic-rich shales, tight oil carbonates, tight sands, and coal seams is a complex challenge demanding a multi-disciplinary effort. By…
Introduction to May Focus: Land Data Acquisition
R. Malcolm Lansley
This month’s Focus is related to land data acquisition. In the early days of recording 3D on land the general recording geometry was very similar no matter where in the World the survey was being acquired. Although we recorded data with both explosives and vibroseis and the geometries were slightly…
Optimal restriction modeling
Keith Millis, Case Caulfield and Andrea Crook
Restrictions to seismic acquisition increasingly limit the positioning of both sources and receivers at theoretically prescribed locations. Designing and subsequently repositioning station locations with respect to those restrictions has become an important and time-conscience aspect of both land and marine seismic programs. Historically, deviations from theoretical locations are prescribed in…
On cost equivalent Mega-Bin and orthogonal geometries in five-dimensional space
Dale Harger and Jason Schweigert
There have been several comparisons of Mega-Bin and orthogonal 3D seismic survey designs over the years. In this paper, we demonstrate a different way to normalize the two types of surveys by creating each design so as to have identical field acquisition efforts and costs. From this vantage point the…
An evaluation of single vibrator, single sweep, 3D seismic acquisition in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin
Paul Thacker, Dale Harger and Doug Iverson
This case history presents two examples of single vibrator, single sweep, 3D seismic data acquired in Alberta during 2013. The first example, from Western Alberta in the Duvernay play fairway, used full size vibrators and was acquired as a zero-risk validation of the technique at the end of a conventional…
Introduction to April Focus: Anisotropy: Characterization of Reservoirs
Satinder Chopra
Traditionally, seismic reservoir characterization has aimed at the determination of reservoir thickness, pore fluid, porosity and water saturation, amongst other properties. This has been done by using the available tools for integrating the well log and seismic data as well as the derived attributes for transforming them into the desired…
Characterization of the dolomite reservoirs with the help of photoelectric index volume
Ritesh Kumar Sharma, Satinder Chopra and Amit Kumar Ray
Carbonate sedimentary rocks that have been fractured, or dolomitized and laterally sealed by tight undolomitized limestone, are frequently seen to produce hydrocarbons. However, the differentiation between limestones and dolomites is a challenge. The purpose of this work is to describe a workflow for discriminating limestones and dolomites, and to map…
Seismic characterization of Montney shale formation using Passey’s approach
Ritesh Kumar Sharma, Satinder Chopra and Amit Kumar Ray
Seismic characterization of shale reservoir formations or source rocks is an important goal, considering the high level of activity in oil companies that are engaged in shale-resource exploitation across North America. Well logging carried out in these formations yields some of the measured parameters helping us understand their properties. Resistivity…
Seismic discontinuity attributes and Sobel filtering
Satinder Chopra, Rajive Kumar and Kurt J. Marfurt
Mapping geologic edges such as faults or channel levees forms a critical component in the interpretation on 3D seismic volumes. While the more prominent features can often be easily visualized, smaller features critical to understanding the structural and depositional environment can be easily overlooked. Careful manual interpretation of such features…
Seismic Imaging in the Presence of Strong Contrasts – How forgetful are seismic waves?
Bernd Milkereit
Seismic imaging is an important geophysical tool for delineating and monitoring the earth’s subsurface structure and its oil, gas and mineral resources. Owing to the earth’s heterogeneity, such subsurface structures exist at different scales (sizes) with lateral and vertical variations in physical properties such as contrasts in bulk and shear…
Introduction to March Focus: Anisotropy: 5D Interpolation
Mike Perz
Out of all the innovation to take place over the past 20 years in land processing, I believe that 5D interpolation has emerged as the single most important algorithm. Whether or not you agree with me, you cannot deny the importance of 5D interpolation (or “5D” for short) in today’s…
Five-dimensional interpolation: New directions and challenges
Daniel Trad
Five-dimensional (5D) interpolation has been in the industry for almost ten years now, and has become widely accepted and used. There are now a variety of implementations, with different algorithms and flavors. Our understanding of interpolation has grown greatly in the last decade because of its use in increasingly challenging…
