Through the Eyes of a Student

…Last month, myself and sixteen other student peers from the UofC attended the SEG convention held in Las Vegas and I would like to take the opportunity to give you a student’s view of the event. Before I discuss the convention itself, it must be noted that all of the…

Grapevine

…2013 CSEG Family Ski Spree The 2013 CSEG Family Ski Spree committee would like to invite you and your family to the 46th Annual CSEG Family Ski Spree in Fairmont, B.C.! A weekend of fun for the whole family including ski and snowboard races, a kids obstacle course, crafts, games,…

Daniel Trad

An Interview with Daniel Trad

…Daniel, I would like you to speak a little about your educational background and work experience. I did my undergraduate diploma on geophysics in the west of Argentina with a stronger emphasis on geology than geophysics. My education was missing depth in math and physics so I switched for some…

Complex-beam Migration and Land Depth Imaging

Tianfei Zhu

…Summary Gaussian-beam depth migration is a useful alternative to Kirchhoff and wave-equation migrations in imaging geologically complex land areas. It overcomes the limitations of Kirchhoff migration in imaging multipathing arrivals and suffers no dip limits from one-way wave equation approximation. The accuracy of the Gaussian-beam method in solving the wave…

Deconvolution After Migration

John C. Bancroft, Thais Guirigay, and Helen Isaac

…Introduction Deconvolution is a process that is normally applied before migration. However, deconvolution should also be performed after migration to enhance the resolution of the data. This concept has been practiced with some marine processing, but we have met considerable opposition when applying it to land data. We discuss some…

A Review on Least Squares Prestack Migration and its Applications

Naser Yousefzadeh and John C. Bancroft

…Summary Kirchhoff least squares prestack migration (LSPSM) attenuates acquisition artifacts resulting from irregularities or sparseness in the wavefield sampling and improves image resolution. This paper provides a brief review on the advantages and disadvantages of using LSPSM. Using synthetic examples, a few applications of LSPSM including improvement in image resolution,…

Overview on the Fundamentals of Imaging

Brian Schulte

…Introduction The purpose of this paper is to review imaging, migration algorithms, and velocity model building. It gives an overview on the goals and techniques utilized in imaging of seismic data. The migration algorithms presented are based in the Gulf of Mexico but are applicable throughout the world. It is…

Introduction to the Processing – Noise Attenuation Focus Articles

Mauricio D. Sacchi

…I am pleased to have observed a renewed interest in seismic signal processing at our latest annual convention. We had an unprecedented number of sessions devoted to seismic signal processing. All of these sessions were well attended, which signals a growing interest in reinvigorating the field of seismic signal processing.…

Rank Reduction of Unfolded Tensors for Pre-stack De-noising and Reconstruction

Nadia Kreimer and Mauricio D. Sacchi

…Summary Seismic data can be represented by a N-dimensional tensor that can be unfolded in N matrices. These N unfolded matrices (also called unfoldings) are low rank when the data are composed of a superposition of linear events. Noise and missing observations increase the rank of the unfolded matrices and,…

Footprint Attenuation with 5D Interpolation

Peter Cary and Mike Perz

…In recent years, 5D interpolation has become a very popular method for regularizing seismic data before 3D prestack migration. In addition to its main purpose of reducing the generation of migration artifacts due to irregular spatial sampling, 5D interpolation also has the very beneficial sideeffect of attenuating acquisition footprint during…

Strong Noise – Removal and Replacement on Seismic Data

Patrick Butler

…Summary Strong noise on seismic data generally not only obscures the underlying signal but also is spread by subsequent linear processing into other traces. Consequently it is very important to nonlinearly remove it and if we can recover some of the signal underneath. Failing that at least we can use…

White Noise Suppression in the Time Domain

Patrick Butler

…Summary White noise forms the basic limit to resolution for seismic data. However we are not usually trying to see a single event on a single trace. We recognise that seismic signal “looks” the same within a time window at least on some adjacent traces. We can use this to…

Doug Campbell

An Interview with Doug Campbell

…Doug, please tell us about your educational background, employment and experience. I attended the University of Calgary, and graduated with a B.Sc. in Geophysics in 1980. I have been working in the Calgary Oilpatch for 32 years, for intermediate Companies such as Suncor and Numac, small companies like Wintershall, and…

CAGC Column

…The BC Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) recently released a report detailing its investigation into hydraulic fracturing and seismic activity in northeast British Columbia. The Commission initiated the investigation after anomalous seismic activity was recorded in a remote area of the Horn River Basin between April 2009 and December 2011.…

Presidential Column

…For most people, the topic of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) most likely induces one of two very different responses. If you are in the oil and gas business you will probably be thinking enhanced production, unconventional resources and/or microseismic monitoring. If you are not in the business and you have been…

Executive Message

…I hope everyone had an enjoyable summer and that you are all well rested and ready for a busy winter. It’s that time of year again, the kids are back in school, the days are getting shorter, and my morning commute takes twice as long as it did in August!…

Tracing the Industry

…To err is human but to really mess up, you need a computer. Well, I got a new computer recently. After the computer set-up then it was time to transfer the software that works all my devices, iPad, iPod, iPhone and Kobo reader. I realized that I have too many…

Through the Eyes of a Student

…Since the beginning of my university career, I have met many people from within the industry. Some have become friends and more importantly, some have become mentors. I understand that in previous columns I have continually shown my gratitude to these people but in this issue I would like to…

Grapevine

…Happy November! As we have a LOT of updates this month, I will keep this short. ☺ Educational and networking opportunities abound this month... Safe travels to anyone travelling to Las Vegas for the SEG this month: educate and entertain yourselves well. And, back in Canada one week later, thanks…

Science Break: Natural Gas Liquids

…Quite frequently my 12-year old son asks me questions that have me opening my mouth to answer only to realise that I don’t have a clue! This happened not long ago when I explained to him that companies were mainly drilling gas wells that provided natural gas liquids (NGL’s). When…