Articles
Indiana Jones and the Seismic Anomaly: The Potential of Seismic Methods in Archaeology
David C. Henley
The painstaking and time-consuming nature of archaeological excavation makes it important to locate potential targets as accurately as possible before digging. Field archaeologists mostly rely on their experience, knowledge and intuition to stake out the most fruitful excavation locations at a site, unless, like Indiana Jones, they have a cryptic…
An Immigrant’s Experience In Job Hunting
Ivaylo Nedev
It is well-known that an overwhelming number of new immigrants choose the region of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as their new home. There are many reasons for this but the main ones are the popularity of the area and the presence of relatives and friends. I am one of…
Intrigue, Mystery and Geophysics… Dead Sea Archaeology, 2001
Paul Bauman, Richard Freund, Rami Arav, John Shroder, Jr., Phil Reeder and Harry Jol
For seven weeks over the past three summers, archaeogeophysical exploration was carried out in caves and other ancient sites of occupation along the Syrian African Rift Valley from the Dead Sea northward to the confluence of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. State of the art geophysical exploration…
Geophysics On Vancouver Island – An Outreach Article
Melvyn E. Best
When first asked to write an article about geophysical activity on Vancouver Island for the Recorder, I was hesitant. The small group of geophysicists have a diverse range of interests, thus making a complete portrayal of their activities difficult. On reflection, though, such an article would provide RECORDER readers with…
“Mix Seismic with Water (Carefully) to Obtain Results” or Shooting Rivers & Lakes, Part One (Shooting Rivers)
Perry Kotkas & John Ropchan
Walk over to your wall map and determine how much land in Alberta is under water, or dissected by rivers. If you knew your company could obtain superior seismic data in a “virgin” area at a reasonable cost, but, it would take planning, expertise, and real environmental stewardship, would you…
Seismic Instruments – What’s New? … And What’s True?
Norman M. Cooper
“We have so much dynamic range now that …” – and then you fill in the blanks. This is perhaps one of the most frequently mis-used phrases in our industry today. This prelude has been used to justify many excuses for poor acquisition practices from the grouping of analog geophones… The Changing Face of the Land Seismic Crew and the Advent of Digital Multicomponent Sensors
Robert Kendall
In the last twenty years land seismic acquisition has changed in many ways. The standard seismic crew twenty years ago was likely to be a 96-channel, 16 bit analogue cable system. Digitizing was done in the recorder and digital data written to tape. Field filters and gain settings were switched…
Global Warming / Climate Change and Variations in Solar Activity: Past, Present and Future?
Ken Allen
Since the author’s first article on this subject, titled “Global Warming and the Sun”, was published in the CSEG Recorder in January 2000, the evidence that solar variations and other natural forces may in fact be the primary drivers of recent global warming have continued to grow. A briefer version…
True Depth Conversion: More Than a Pretty Picture
Edward L. Etris, Nick J. Crabtree and Jan Dewar
A good seismic image is not enough for an exploration or field development interpretation. Good well ties and reliable depth conversion are also required. The authors have found that geologists and geophysicists tend to approach the depth conversion process quite differently. The geologist says, “If I don’t have wells, how…
Seismic Imaging: Prestack
John C. Bancroft
The kinematics of prestack data consider an arbitrary offset between the source and receiver. The added dimension of the source-receiver offset defines a prestack volume where the location of source gathers, constant offset sections, common midpoint gathers, etc. are identified. Reflection energy from horizontal reflectors, dipping reflectors, or scatterpoints can…
Evaluation of Foothills Natural Gas Plays Using Two Dimensional Balanced Cross Sections
Andrew C. Newson
Exploration for large gas fields in the Foothills has been an important part of many oil and gas companies’ exploration strategies in Canada during the last 5 years. Given the increasing demand for natural gas and the realistic expectation that we will continue to find large natural gas reserves in…
Scientific Anathema: The Black Box
Lee Hunt
The existence of undisclosed or ‘black box’ techniques have long been with us. Black box techniques have historically been offered either to preserve a technological secret, or to provide a cloak in which deception and exaggeration may be perpetrated. One motivation comes from the very understandable desire to protect a…
High-Resolution Crosswell Seismic Imaging Between Horizontal Wells
Guoping Li and Ernest Majer
Crosswell seismology is a proven high-resolution seismic imaging technology due to its ability to provide unusually high-frequencies conventionally unattainable by 3-D seismic. Numerous case studies have demonstrated its applicability as one of the most effective reservoir management tools. A recent report by Zhang et al. (2002), for instance, shows that…
Geophysical Methods Used in Exploration for Gemstones
Frederick A. Cook
Advancements in geophysical methods provide opportunities for applications in exploration and development of many types of gemstone deposits. Mega-scale regional techniques, such as teleseismic signals, regional electromagnetic, and long range controlled source seismology (reflection and refraction) soundings, assist in delineating thick cratonic regions and the internal structure of the lithosphere…
Base Metal Exploration: Looking Deeper and Adding Value with Seismic Data
Larry Matthews
The search for mineral resources in the crystalline crust has become increasingly challenging as the need to explore deeper becomes an economic reality. Canadian mining camps continue to deplete their historical reserve base from decades old surface discoveries or deepening mine extensions. Ongoing efforts are focused toward developing technologies capable…
Finding Nickel from the B-Field at Raglan – ‘To B or not dB’
Richard T. Osmond and Anthony H. Watts, William R. Ravenhurst, Catherine P. Foley and Keith E. Leslie
Based on test work over known Ni-Cu sulphide deposits, in Sudbury (Watts A., 1997, King A., 1994) as well as Voisey’s Bay (Balch S.J., 1998), it has become increasingly clear that pyrrhotite hosted sulphide deposits possess conductances on the order of 100 kS to 10,000 kS and even greater depending…
Crosswell Seismic Profiling: The Decade Ahead
Jerry M. Harris
For many years Crosswell seismic profiles (XSP) have promised high-resolution images for purposes of reservoir characterization and monitoring. Designed to fill the gap in coverage and resolution that exists between surface seismic and borehole logs, the crosswell seismic profile has overcome numerous hurdles in technology development, operations, and commercialization. Where…
Natural Gas Hydrates: Permanent Earth Constituents Impacting Sediment Strength and Continental Margin Evolution
Allen Lowrie, Carol Lutken, Erika Geresi, Richard H. Bennett, Richard Faas, Tom McGee
Natural gas hydrates are crystalline structures that combine natural gases and water under appropriate temperature and pressure conditions. Natural gases and water are found throughout the Solar System, even in interplanetary space. It is geologically reasonable to conjecture that these natural components were incorporated into the proto-Earth and that hydrates…
Integrated Well Log and Reflection Seismic Analysis of Gas Hydrate Accumulations on Richards Island
T.S. Collett and S.R. Dallimore
The subsurface zone in which the pressure and temperature conditions are conducive to the occurrence of gas-hydrates is areally extensive beneath most of the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea region, with the base of the gas-hydrate stability zone more than 1,200 m deep on Richards Island. In a recent study, gas hydrates…
How AVO Can be a Multiple Attenuator
Jan Dewar
Sometimes there are spin-off benefits to developing a technology. From NASA’s space technology program, for instance, we have benefited from unintended applications such as fireproof suits for auto racers, laser angioplasty, advanced digital imaging for biopsies, and programmable pacemakers. While programmable pacemakers clearly were not directly developed for space travel,…
