Articles

Pre-stack land surface and interbed demultiple methodology An Example from the Arabian Peninsula

Roald van Borselen, Grog Fookes, Michel Schonewille, Constantine Tsingas, Michael West, Abu Baker Al Jeelani and Mohamad Samir Nahhas

This case study shows the application of data-driven multiple removal techniques to a land data set from the Arabian Plate. Strong surface and internal reverberations are removed using a standardised processing flow, while preserving the original geometry for subsequent processing. This paper highlights some of the practical aspects of applying…

Earth Model Complexity and Risk Description in Resource Exploration and Development

William L. Abriel

During the past 10 years, seismic imaging and analysis has expanded its role from structural exploration to reservoir description and property analysis. As experiences have developed, the description of the earth required to image and analyze the reservoirs has in many cases required significantly more complexity than anticipated. It is…

A comparison of two different approaches to 3D seismic survey design

Gijs J.O. Vermeer

This paper compares conventional 3D seismic survey design with the 3D symmetric sampling approach. Conventional survey design focuses on midpoint gathers, whereas the 3D symmetric sampling approach focuses on shot and receiver gathers. The differences are illustrated by the way in which obstacles are tackled: skidding and off setting as…

Kohat Plateau with Reference to Himalayan Tectonic General Study

Wasim Paracha

The study area (72°N, 33°50’E and 72°30’N, 33°25’E) needs more investigation over the Recent to Eocene time span with regard to the structural changes occurring within different parts of the region. The author tried to study the general geological and geophysical results of the Indo-Eurasian collision (with stable Asia rotational…

Oil Company Key Facts

Christopher Pettit

Samson's financial strength derives from several sources. The Company has a strong base of internal capital with significant cash flow from product sales. It also maintains lines of credit with a network of U.S. and European banks. These re sources provide Samson with the immediate ability to meet its objectives…

Uncertainty in AVO – How can we measure it?

Dan Hampson, Brian Russell, Maurizio Cardamone

AVO analysis has become a basic and accepted tool for both exploration and production. In this regard, it has come a long way from the early days when acceptance of the method oscillated wildly between excessive expectations and total rejection. Probably the biggest change that has come about is that…

Focus Intro: Stratigraphy-Plays, Software, Processing

Oliver Kuhn

The last decade or two has seen seismic interpretation become less qualitative and more quantitative. Geophysicists now commonly work closely in teams with geologists and engineers, who think of the subsurface in terms of lithology and real rock properties. Numerous new techniques and methodologies have evolved to help move geophysicists…

Seismic Waveform Classification: Techniques and Benefits

Eric Andersen & John Boyd

Seismic waveform shape and character can define facies and reservoir parameters with far greater detail than traditional time and amplitude mapping. Modern techniques using waveform classification make it possible to define and map subtle changes in seismic response and to match them to subsurface information. Waveform classification can also be…

Accurate stratigraphic prediction from seismic

Matt Hall & Eric Trouillot

Interpretation of subsurface geology is greatly enhanced by 3-D seismic data, and this accounts for its ubiquity in today’s search for hydrocarbons. Seismic interpretation has two fundamental disciplines at its core: seismic geomorphology and seismic stratigraphy. Plan views allow the interpreter to apply principles of geomorphology, based on analogies with…

3D Modeling of Stratigraphic Heterogeneity in Channelized Reservoirs: Methods and Applications in Seismic Attribute Facies Classification

Renjun Wen

This paper describes a new method of stratigraphic heterogeneity modeling in channelized reservoirs. A 3D model of a channelized reservoir is simulated by migrating and stacking multiple channels in a background facies, whereby reservoir flow units are represented based on geological rules rather than statistical distributions. Spatial distributions of major…

The Changing Face of The Canadian Oilpatch

Wilf Gobert

During the 1980s and 1990s, the duration of bull markets in energy equities (an uptrend in the energy index of 25% or more) lasted 18 to 20 months on average before world oil price volatility caused a bear market, which typically lasted 12 to 14 months. The current bull market…

Petroleum Pride

Eve S. Sprunt

The petroleum industry has a serious image problem both with the general public and with employees. Many of those working in the oil patch are less than complementary when they talk about their employers. For the last two decades the number of people in the industry has been shrinking. Today’s…

A Brief History of Canada’s Natural Gas Production

Dave Russum

Natural gas has been the primary driver in Alberta’s growth over the past fifteen years. The graph shows the trend in Canadian marketed gas production (Bcf/d) since 1947 (CAPP Data). The red area shows the gas production from the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) while gas production from Eastern Canada…

Implementation of a State-of-the-Art Monitoring system on Turtle Mountain

On April 29th, 2003, during the Centennial remembrance ceremony for the disastrous Frank Slide, Premier Ralph Klein announced that the Province of Alberta would commit to implementing a state-of-the-art monitoring system for Turtle Mountain at a cost of $1 million dollars. AGS is providing geological technical expertise towards implementing this…

Mackenzie Delta: Fresh Look at an Emerging Basin

Christopher L. Bergquist, Peter P. Graham, and Dennis H. Johnston

Focus Intro: Environmental geophysics

Helen Isaac

Environmental geophysics, like mining geophysics, is thought of, by some myopic Calgarians, as a poor relation of petroleum geophysics. However, much interesting and highly relevant work is being done in this field. Important issues such as the detection of contaminated sites for remedial clean-up of hazardous waste materials, determination of…

Adventures with GPR experiments through ice

Helen Isaac and Greg MacCulloch

Three ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were conducted across frozen lakes to investigate the practicality of the method for determining the depths of lakes for Environment Canada. Traverses acquired at Lake Louise with 25 MHz, 100 MHz and 200 MHz antennae imaged the bottom of the lake very well to about…

Mapping groundwater in regolith and fractured bedrock using ground geophysics: A case study from Mal

Richard Kellett and Paul Bauman

Water supply in rural regions of southern Africa is complicated by the highly irregular nature of aquifers in weathered crystalline bedrock. Drilling success can be as low as 30%. Improvements in the success rate can be achieved by using simple geophysical investigations to target the thickest zones of weathering. More…

Multi-method geophysical prospecting of the Moviola lui Deciov archaeological site, Romania

J.M. Maillol

An archaeological geophysics survey was conducted on the Early Neolithic site of Moviola lui Deciov, in the Province of Banat, Romania. Magnetometry was used for the main prospection effort and a test of electrical resistivity imaging was conducted on a selected profile. In addition, magnetic susceptibility measurements were obtained from…

AVO Modeling in Seismic Processing and Interpretation Part III. Applications

Yongyi Li, Jonathan Downton, and Yong Xu

AVO modeling plays an active role in three areas: new technology development, QC data processing, and assisting data interpretation. This paper attempts to discuss these issues, with emphasis on the applications of AVO modeling in data processing and interpretation. Data modeling is introduced for its theoretical background and its applications…