Articles
Investing in EM
Richard Kellett
... Improving AVO fidelity by NMO stretching and offset dependent tuning corrections
Yong Xu and Satinder Chopra
Wavelet stretching due to NMO correction of seismic gathers causes problems in AVO. Coupled with the degrading action of wavelet stretching is offset dependent tuning for thin beds. Even though tuning is inherent in the data before NMO correction, its effect on AVO is more obvious on NMO corrected data.…
Seismic curvature attributes for mapping faults/fractures, and other stratigraphic features
Satinder Chopra and Kurt Marfurt
Seismic attributes are a powerful aid to seismic interpretation, providing geoscientists with alternative images of faults and channels that can be used as components in unraveling the depositional environment structural deformation history. While seismic attributes have been used for nearly four decades, some of the most significant attribute developments and…
Beyond a Thousand Barrels a Second
Peter Tertzakian
... V1 technology offers breakthrough in land seismic data quality
Julien Meunier, Thomas Bianchi, Jean-Jacques Postel and Roger Taylor
In Land Seismic operations there is a strong industry drive to continually improve quality and productivity, to meet the ever increasing demands for cost-effective high-density and wide-azimuth recording. There is also a shift towards a point-source, point-receiver acquisition model where the aim is to reduce the size of conventional source…
The CHORUS Project: Research Consortium unlocking cold production methods for Canadian/Global heavy oil needs
While global energy consumption continues to rise, and conventional oil reserves continue to diminish, more and more emphasis is being placed on maximizing production methods for heavy oil and bitumen reserves. CHORUS is a dynamic collaboration between university researchers and heavy oil industry partners involving a unique research team working…
Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques and Nitrogen Injection
Bandar Duraya Al-Anazi
The present state of modern industrial development is characterized by the consumption of enormous quantities of petroleum. It is not used simply for the production of various fuels and lubricants; with each passing year more and more petroleum is used for manufacturing synthetic rubber, synthetic fibers, plastics, drugs, and thousands…
Canadian Federation of Earth Scientists
Ian Young
My name is Ian Young and I am the current President of the Canadian Federation of Earth Scientists (Fédération canadienne des sciences de la Terre), a new name for the now 35 year old Canadian Geoscience Council. Ironically, the CGC was founded to provide a united voice for Earth sciences…
The Double Edged Sword: The Impact of the Interaction between Salt and Sediment on Sub-salt Exploration Risk in Deep Water
Selim Shaker
The high rewards of finding hydrocarbon in the sub salt plays make it very attractive for exploration endeavors. However, it is a challenging mission. Subsurface pressure uncertainty causes recurrent drilling failure to reach the objective targets.
... Junior Geophysicists Forum (JGF)
JGF Committee
... Anisotropic PP and PSv prestack depth migration of 4C seismic data, offshore Trinidad
Tony Johns and Raul Sarmiento
In November 2004, EOG Resources acquired an ocean-bottom cable (OBC) 4C swath survey across the Pamberi-1 well location in the Lower Reverse L block of the Columbus basin, eastern offshore Trinidad. The purpose of the 4C test survey was to evaluate the potential of long-offset multicomponent technology for resolving lithology…
Using Multi-Well Microseismicity to Identify Fracture Types Associated with Hydraulic Fracture Stimulations
Douglas C. Bleakly, James E. Wolfe, Ian Leslie, Marc Prince, Vladimir Shumila,Ted Urbancic
BP deployed microseismic monitoring arrays in two observation wells in a Rocky Mountain tight gas province for the purpose of mapping hydraulic fractures in a nearby lateral. Engineering Seismology Group (ESG) collaborated with BP to conduct an advanced re-analysis of the large data set obtained from the dual-well microseismic monitoring…
Towards a comprehensive open-source system for geophysical data processing and interpretation
Glenn Chubak, Igor Morozov, and Shannon Blyth
An effort is underway for building an open-source package (called SIA) for processing and analysis of a broad range of geophysical data, with emphasis on reflection/ refraction seismics. The package also represents a highly integrated framework for developing geophysical applications software using C++ and other languages. Currently, the package consists…
Vimy Ridge and Geophysics
Don Gendzwill
Vimy Ridge in northern France, a heavily fortified German army stronghold since 1914, was thought to be impregnable after large French and British armies suffered heavy losses in 1915 and 1916 in attempts to re-capture it. Many of the losses were due to their own inaccurate artillery fire. During April…
The wedge model revisited
Joanna Cooper, Don Lawton and Gary Margrave
Several physical seismic models of simple wedges were built to assess amplitude effects commonly associated with the classic ‘Widess’ wedge. Rather than producing simple tuning associated with thin beds, 2D zero-offset seismic surveys over these physical models showed a surprising number of high-amplitude dipping events corresponding to pure-mode , mixed-mode,…
2-D Migration Footprint
Peter Cary
It is sometimes thought that prestack migration footprint is a 3-D problem that is due to the poor spatial sampling inherent in prestack 3-D data. Footprint is often visible on 3-D time slices as a hatched interference pattern. However, it is not always recognized that prestack migration can generate a…
Improved trending of features on aeromagnetic maps
Richard Smith and Michael O’Connell
In mining and near-surface geophysics, aeromagnetic maps are an important tool for mapping geology. In some terrains, the geology is comprised of narrow features striking at multiple angles. When the aeromagnetic data is converted to a grid, these features do not always image well, particularly when the features are not…
R&D Forum in Atlantic Canada rewards Calgary geophysical company
Michael Enachescu
Petroleum Research Atlantic Canada (PRAC) held its two day Atlantic Petroleum R&D Forum this May 2007 at the Fairmont Newfoundland Hotel in St John’s. Delegates from across the country were in attendance, as industry leaders, scientists, engineers and others addressed regional petroleum industry needs and challenges - and the important…
Mapping the Mantle Lithosphere for Diamond Potential
David Snyder, Michael Bostock and Grant Lockhart
Diamond deposits are typically identified in four stages: (1) regional targeting in which a region’s potential is assessed, often by grid till sampling for indicator minerals or global seismology; (2) kimberlite detection in which till sampling and high resolution aeromagnetic surveys locate individual deposits; (3) deposit delineation in which drill…
The Influence of the Lithosphere on the Core: 3D Mantle Convection Modelling on Planetary Scales
Julian P. Lowman and M. Hosein Shahnas
Parallel computing clusters have made it feasible to study three-dimensional mantle convection on time scales of billions of years. Models tailored to take advantage of parallel machines are being used to re-examine problems where the full effects of three-dimensionality have remained unexplored. As a result, it has become possible to…
