Tracing the Industry

…Kirby Kimball has moved from Eagle Geophysical to Polaris Explorer in the position of Operations Supervisor. His office number is (403) 531-9635 and cell number is (403) 650-8581. You can also email kirby.kimball@polarisexplorer.com. Graham Millington would like to inform his colleagues that he has retired fro m Exxon Mobil Canada.…

Grapevine

…International Datashare Corporation International Datashare Corporation (IDC) is pleased to announce the purchase of the following: Angis Software Inc., Nickle Map, and MSI Capture part of MSI Systems Integration Inc. IDC is a world leader in providing high quality data, software solutions, and value added interpretation services to the oil…

Beam Steering and Controlled Illumination

George Adler

…Introduction Beam steering and controlled illumination are closely related in geophysical processing. The idea of beam steering has been used in physics for a long time. For example, in radar technology it is possible to steer the radar wave without moving the antenna itself, by applying proper phase shifts between…

Seismic Deconvolution: Assumptions, Concerns and Convictions

Peter Cary

…Early in our careers as geophysicists, most of us took at least one course on seismic signal analysis where we were taught that standard Wiener deconvolution converts the minimum-phase source wavelet in our seismic data to a wavelet with a phase spectrum that is zero and an amplitude spectrum that…

AVO Processing: Myths and Reality

Guillaume Cambois

…Summary AVO processing is meant to make the input data compatible with Shuey’s equation. This task is extremely difficult due to the overly simplistic formulation of the problem compared with the complexity of the real physical experiment. Fortunately, the advent of elastic impedance has made it possible to relax some…

Imaging Through Gas Clouds: A Case History in the Gulf of Mexico?

S. Knapp, N. Payne and T. Johns

…Summary Results from the worlds largest 3D four component OBC seismic survey will be presented. Located in the West Cameron area, offshore Gulf of Mexico, the survey operation totaled over 1000 square kilometers and covered more than 46 OCS blocks. The area contains numerous gas invaded zones and shallow gas…

How Did M&A’s Impact R&D in Geophysics

Gordon Cope

…Long before the slowdown of the Asian economy in early 1998 triggered the collapse of crude oil, petroleum companies around the world had been altering the way that they dealt with research and development. In this third in a series of articles, The RECORDER examines the impact of the latest…

International Negotiations

David Mitrovica

…Etruscan Seismic completed its first international project outside of North America over the past year. Under a contract with an Illyrian oil company, Etruscan acquired approximately 200 miles of 2D seismic in the region of that country. The project was performed using telemetry technology and was conducted over a five…

‘Remain Enthused with the Science and Have Technical Persistence’

An Interview with Bill Goodway

…Bill, would you like to tell us about your early education and background? My interest in geology and physics started in high school, and led to a degree in geology. In those early days geophysics was not offered as an undergraduate program - so I had a choice between physics…

Grapevine

…Keyblocks Software Update PanTechnica recently released a new version of their Key-Blocks software. The software is the only complete implementation of the key-block program for analysis of wedges in blocky rock masses. There are two analysis modules, Kbslope and Kbtunnel. The programs will compute the removability and stability of blocks…

Tracing the Industry

…Here are the latest changes in our industry. Kelman Technologies Inc. (KTI) is pleased to announce that Paul Chernoff has joined the company as a Processing Supervisor. Paul has over 25 years of experience processing 2D and 3D seismic data and will further complement an already strong processing team. Paul's…

Refraction Tomography: A Practical Overview of Emerging Technologies

Konstantin Osypov

…Near-surface velocity anomalies produce severe distortions in seismic images. If one knew the detailed structure of these anomalies, the best way to tackle this problem would be to perform wave-equation datuming or depth migration from the surface. However, 3-D prestack depth imaging and datuming are computational challenges and highly sensitive…

Non-Hyperbolic Moveout, Polar Anisotropy and Anelasticity

Arnim B. Haase

…Introduction Experience with anisotropic velocity analysis shows that, occasionally, non-hyperbolic moveout in plains data cannot be satisfactorily corrected with the Grechka/Tsvankin approximation as presented at the 1997 SEG convention (Grechka and Tsvankin, 1997). For this approximation, a Taylor-series expansion is truncated beyond the fourth power in offset. In a subsequently…

Revisiting the Radial Trace Transform

David C. Henley

…Introduction In geophysics, as with many other disciplines, it can sometimes be fruitful to review an idea originally conceived many years ago for one particular application, to see whether it can also be used for other purposes. The radial trace transform is an example of such an idea. Originally introduced…

M&A’s and the Service Industry

Gordon Cope

…In early 1998, the collapse of the Asian economy left the world awash in surplus oil. Within months, the price of crude dipped to record lows of $11 per barrel. Petroleum companies scrambled to cut costs, and exploration and production expenditures were the first to be curtailed. In Canada alone,…

Expatriate Recruitment and Effectiveness

David Mitrovica

…Introduction A dominant theme during the last decade has been, and continues to be, the issue of globalisation. Globalisation encapsulates a description of a rapid, and pervasive, diffusion around the world of production, consumption, investment and trade flows in goods, services, capital and technology. Globalisation has yielded such significant, though…

Tracing the Industry

…Here are the latest changes our industry: ARCIS Processing is pleased to announce Ms. Susan Fraser has joined the division as of January 3rd, 2001. Susan brings her marketing & sales expertise to the Arcis Processing team and will join us as a senior sales coordinator. This will further enhance…

Grapevine

…SIS Joins GEDCO Geophysical Exploration & Development Corporation (GEDCO) and Seismic Image Software Ltd. (SIS) are pleased to announce that they have reached an agreement for SIS to become a division of GEDCO. Mike Galbraith will remain in the position of president of SIS. SIS will continue its management, development…

Seismic Inversion – The Best Tool for Reservoir Characterization

John Pendrel

…Introduction The principle objective of seismic inversion is to transform seismic reflection data into a quantitative rock property, descriptive of the reservoir. In its most simple form, acoustic impedance logs are computed at each CMP. In other words, if we had drilled and logged wells at the CMP’s, what would…

Stochastic Seismic Inversion Applied to Reservoir Characterization

Gary Robinson

…Seismic inversion has been used for several decades in the petroleum industry, both for exploration and production purposes. During this time, seismic inversion methods have progressed from the initial recursive inversion method to the present plethora of methods and software packages available to transform band-limited seismic traces to impedance traces.…