Tracing the Industry

…On the Move... Ted Wong has taken on a new role with Cenovus Energy Inc. as Sr. Advisor, Field Coordinator with Cenovus’ seismic operations group. P: 1-403-766-2229 | Email: ted.wong@cenovus.com Arcis Seismic Solutions, a TGS Company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Josef Heim to the position of Senior…

Grapevine

…Doodlespiel 2015 Results The 43rd annual 2015 Doodlespiel has now come and gone and this year we had 86 teams with over 400 participants. The host town of Banff and the Banff Curling Club again created an amazing venue for the Doodlespiel that was enjoyed by all. The A event…

Known Knowns, Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns in Land Exploration Seismology

Peter Cary

…Famously, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in February 2002 made the following statement in response to the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with weapons of mass destruction: “…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also…

Introduction To February Focus: Electromagnetic Methods

Martyn Unsworth

…This special issue of the CSEG RECORDER features three contributed articles describing recent developments in electromagnetic (EM) methods. While EM methods were some of the first geophysical methods to be developed for mineral exploration, they were rapidly surpassed by the number of seismic surveys undertaken in hydrocarbon exploration. Thus today…

Imaging SAGD steam chambers: traditional ERT vs broadband electromagnetic methods

Sarah G. R. Devriese and Douglas W. Oldenburg

…The Athabasca oil sands, located in Northern Alberta, Canada, are one of the largest oil reserves in the world. Over the last 30 years, industry has developed the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) method to extract heavy oil that is too viscous to be extracted using conventional methods and is…

New developments in audio-magnetotelluric exploration: Case study from Darnley Bay area, N.W.T

David K. Goldak and Ryan W. Olson

…Darnley Bay occurs within the Amundsen Gulf and is located within the Inuvialuit settlement region of the Western Canadian Arctic. It is home to one of the largest gravity anomalies in the world. With a diameter of approximately 60 km and an amplitude exceeding 130 mGal, the source of the…

Magnetotelluric studies of lithospheric structure beneath Western Canada: insights into plate tectonics both past and present

Martyn Unsworth

…Electromagnetic (EM) methods were originally developed for mineral exploration owing to the large contrast in electrical resistivity between many ore bodies and the host rock. They have subsequently found application in a range of fields including geothermal exploration, hydrogeology and environmental geophysics. In addition to applied studies, EM methods are…

A New Perspective on Shallow Water Flow (SWF) Prediction and the Prevention of Sinking Well-Heads in Deepwater Settings

Selim Simon Shaker

…A new study integrating the seismic velocity profile with a proposed subsurface geopressure partition sheds light on a possible cause of shallow water flow (SWF) sands and sinking well heads in deepwater settings. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), previously known as MMS, reported 157 cases of SWF in…

Kris Innanen

An Interview with Kris Innanen

…Kris, I would like you to speak a little about your educational background and your work experience. My earliest and most meaningful experiences with science came from my parents. My father was a professor of astrophysics, and my mother was educated as an astronomer as well. My sister and brother…

President’s Message

…One linguistic tool I highly appreciate is the portmanteau, where we combine two or more words to create a new word, usually with some compaction effect by removing overlapping sounds. Common portmanteau words include favourites such as guesstimate, brunch, spork, and skort. In the geoscience community, we often use “geo”…

Executive Message

…This is my last RECORDER communication to CSEG membership. My three year commitment to the CSEG executive as Vice-President, President and Past President is rapidly coming to a close. It has been interesting and rewarding. From time to time the sum of ‘day job’ and CSEG hours has been, frankly,…

CAGC Column

…“Readings Are Solely For The Entertainment Of Customers.” Sign above a table used for crystal ball gazers, tea leaf and tarot card readers Dave Yager of MNP LLP said in his January 5, 2015 Newsletter: “Holy cow. Do up your seat belt. WTI trading at US$48.14 right now.” So here…

Volunteer Spotlight

…CSEG Symposium Committee March 4th. Downtown Calgary. 8am. Geophysicists will gather. There will be a buzz in the air. Since 2012 the CSEG has honoured Dan Hampson, Brian Russell, Bill Goodway, and John Boyd with full day symposia that have included 10-11 invited speakers, a luncheon, and plenty of networking…

Science Break: Aerial Archaeology

…GIS technology, especially Google Maps and Google Earth, has given anyone the ability to view even the remotest parts of the globe. When my grandparents were young, in the late 1800’s, there were huge areas of the Earth that were simply blank spaces on western maps. The source of the…

Tracing the Industry

…On the Move... Arcis Seismic Solutions, a TGS Company, is pleased to announce the appointment of John Rennie to the position of Advanced Processing Geophysicist – QC Services. John will be responsible for assisting the QC Services Project Manager, Thane Strandberg in the quality control of multi-client projects by effectively…

Grapevine

…CALL FOR SPONSORSHIP – Canada Region AAPG Imperial Barrel Award The eighth annual Canada Region AAPG Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) competition will be held in Calgary on March 27, 2015. This is an excellent opportunity for graduate geoscientists from universities across Canada to gain experience evaluating real world oil and…

Signal Processing and Physics-Based Approaches to Seismic Data Regularization

Aaron Stanton

…In recent years seismic data interpolation has been a major focus area for geophysical research. These efforts aim to compensate for inadequate spatial sampling of sources and receivers to precondition the data for prestack migration. Interpolation algorithms rely on a variety of signal processing strategies with the underlying assumption that…

Introduction To January Focus: Oil Sands

David Gray

…It is my pleasure to bring to you some fine articles by my friends and colleagues. All these articles were solicited by me for this special section because I have seen the excellent work that these passionate, first-rate geophysicists are doing and I wish to bring their outstanding work to…

Strategies to fill in the details for an oil sands reservoir: Kinosis example

Dragana Todorovic-Marinic, David Gray and Jan Dewar

…In developing an oil sands play, the task facing the geoscientist is to build a detailed characterization of a three-dimensionally complex reservoir to position horizontal wells precisely and optimally. There is usually no shortage of data to examine. In fact, terabytes of information about the reservoir are often collected. The…

Characterization of the Albian Lower Grand Rapids Formation, Cold Lake, Alberta

Tammy Willmer and Garrett Quinn

…The Alberta Energy Regulator estimates 10.0 billion m3 (62.9 billion barrels) of bitumen initially in place within the Albian-aged Lower Grand Rapids Formation (LGR) in the Cold Lake Oil Sands Region (Marsh and Honarvar, 2014). Despite this significant resource estimate, development of the zone lags behind other bitumen reservoirs in…