Articles
The influence of spatial sampling on resolution
Mark S. Egan, Joe Seissiger, Antoun Salama, George El-Kaseeh
... Characterization of a heavy oil reservoir using Vp/Vs ratio and neural network analysis
Carmen C. Dumitrescu and Larry Lines
The Oil Sands reservoir related to the Long Lake South (LLS) Project is contained within the McMurray Formation, which is the basal unit of the Lower Cretaceous Mannville Group. The McMurray Formation directly overlies the Subcretaceous Unconformity, which is developed on Paleozoic carbonates of the Beaver Hill Lake Group, and…
Magnitude Determination, Event Detectability, and Assessing the Effectiveness of Microseismic Monitoring Programs in Petroleum Applications
Adam Baig and Ted Urbancic
Magnitudes and locations are the first-order output for microseismic events recorded during hydraulic fracture stimulations and longer term reservoir based extraction operations (eg., CSS, SAG-D, CO2 sequestration). The magnitude describes the strength of an event and tells us about the dynamics of the fracturing processes and the distribution of magnitudes…
Sensitivity measurements for locating microseismic events
John C. Bancroft, Joe Wong, and Lejia Han
The first-arrival clock-times from a number of receivers are used to estimate the clock-time and location of a microseismic event. The 3D analytic solution is based on a 2D Apollonius method which requires four receivers that are non-coplanar or non-collinear. These restrictions are typically violated when receivers are placed in…
The old and new in noise removal, wavefield representation and data regularization
Mauricio Sacchi, Sam Kaplan and Mostafa Naghizadeh
Traditional noise removal methods based on Fourier analysis, Radon transforms, and prediction filtering have occupied an important place in our arsenal of methods for noise attenuation. They all rely on different assumptions and, in general, on a simple signal model. An open problem in seismic data processing is the establishment…
Impact of Microseismic Location Uncertainties On Interpreted Fracture Geometries
Shawn Maxwell
Microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing is a growing technology throughout North America, and especially in the WCSB. Microearthquakes associated with hydraulic fracture stimulations are used to image the fracture network induced by the injection, and provide unique information about the fracture geometries. In an article in the March 2009 issue…
Gaussian-beam polarization-based location methods using S-waves for hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity
Xueping Zhao, David S. Collins, and R. Paul Young
We propose a new method to locate hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity using three-component S-waveforms. The method requires only time intervals around the peak amplitude of the S-wave and does not depend on the arrival-time picking accuracy. The initial-value for the ray tracing is along the direction of wave propagation obtained…
Classification of microseismic events via principal component analysis of trace statistics
Jeffrey F. Tan, Robert R. Stewart, and Joe Wong
Prior to microseismic hypocenter location, an event-classification technique must be used to identify “good” events warranting further investigation from “noise” events that are generally not of interest. A passive-seismic monitoring system may record tens or hundreds of thousands of microseismic traces daily, so the event classification method must be precise…
Lessons Learned from Simultaneous Source Investigations
Craig J. Beasley
Dealing with external interferences imposed on a desired seismic signal is fundamental to achieving the goals of a seismic survey. Whether it be related to Earth transmission effects or external noise, this is the stuff of acquisition, processing and, ultimately, interpretation of seismic data. From time-to-time, geophysicists have taken a…
What Comes Up Must Have Gone Down the Principle and Application of Up-Down Deconvolution for Multiple Attenuation of Ocean Bottom Data
Yi Wang, Sergio Grion and Richard Bale
Up-down deconvolution is a method for attenuating all free surface multiples from ocean bottom seismic data, by exploiting the separation into up and down-going wavefields from combining hydrophone and geophone data. We describe the method and show its application both to a synthetic dataset provided to us by Chevron and…
On Calibrating Curvature Data to Fracture Density: Causes
Lee Hunt, Satinder Chopra, Scott Reynolds, and Scott Hadley
Volume curvature attributes have been used to infer fracture density in a variety of seismic data worldwide. Estimating accurate quantitative fracture density values from curvature data is of special importance because curvature belongs to a general class of attributes that infer fractures through causal relationships rather than through direct detection…
The measure of full-wave motion: An overview of multicomponent seismic exploration and its value
Robert R. Stewart
This paper presents a short history – and extended future – of the multicomponent (full-wave/vector/elastic) seismic method. The goal of the method is to more fully generate and record complete vibrations in the earth; then, use these recordings to enhance traditional P-wave arrivals and create complementary shear- and surface-wave pictures.…
Junior Geophysicists Forum
On Tuesday November 3, 2009 approximately 170 geophysicists gathered for the 7th Junior Geophysicist Forum (JGF) at our new venue on the 35th floor of The International Hotel. The new venue was a great change as it provided much more space and allowed people to engage enthusiastically in our Icebreaker…
Reflection seismic data from legacy hydrocarbon exploration of Cenozoic and older basins of the Canadian High Arctic
Tom Brent
This presentation summarizes some historical aspects of industry’s seismic exploration effort in the High Arctic. A range of seismic interpretation issues related to both geology and seismic data quality, as seen on different vintages and in various arctic regions, are discussed. Also highlighted are efforts of the GSC since 1984…
Beauty algorithm, eh? (A perspective on Canadian processing innovation)
Mike Perz
In the grand hierarchy of things quintessentially Canadian, “land seismic processing excellence” may not share the same iconic status as poutine, maple syrup, or the McKenzie Brothers …but in my opinion that’s only because it hasn’t received its due recognition! The following perspective piece provides a walking tour of recent…
Prestack Rank-Reduction-Based Noise Suppression
Stewart Trickett and Lynn Burroughs
Prestack random-noise suppression is an important but inadequately- solved problem in land seismic processing, with the potential to significantly improve AVO analysis and the stacked section. To address this problem, we describe a family of filters that perform matrix-rank reduction on constant-frequency slices. These filters include two existing techniques –…
Inversion Driven Processing
Greg Cameron, Josef Heim and David Cho
Seismic data are increasingly used to estimate rock properties through prestack inversion. However, most seismic data processing routines were developed to produce an optimal migrated stack, with the quality of prestack gathers of secondary importance. This paper examines the requirements of seismic data to be used for prestack inversion and…
Interpreting fractures through 3D seismic discontinuity attributes and their visualization
Satinder Chopra
Fractures can enhance permeability in reservoirs and hence impact the productivity and recovery efficiency from them. Fold and fault geometries, stratal architecture and large-scale depositional elements (e.g. channels, incised valley-fill and turbidite fan complexes) are often difficult to see clearly on vertical and horizontal slices through seismic reflection data. Seismic…
4D Seismic Monitoring of Subsurface Fluid Flow
David Lumley
4D seismic involves repeating 3D seismic surveys in timelapse mode to image changes in subsurface fluid flow over time, whether due to injection or depletion in a hydrocarbon reservoir, injection and storage of CO2 for sequestration projects, or other subsurface processes such as groundwater flow or environmental contaminant remediation. To…
High-performance Vibroseis for high-density land acquisition
John Gibson, Howard Watt, Peter Maxwell and Roger Taylor
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