History of Seismic In The Gulf of Mexico

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History of Seismic In The Gulf of Mexico
Glenn Morton, Paul Schlirf, Mark Chang, Victor
Kriechbaum
Thanks to all the Contractors who contributed to
this talk WesternGeco, PGS, Veritas, Fugro, John
Chance, Ensoco, Kerr-McGee
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The Primitive Start of Geophysics
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The First Geophone
Built by Gray, Ewing and Milne in Tokyo 1880
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Early History

• 1846 Irish scientist Robert Mallet suggested that
  rocks might have different velocities of sound.
• 1851 Robert Mallet carried out field experiments,
  measuring  velocities in granite and loose sand
• 1876 U. S. General H. L. Abbot measured velocity
  of sound in rocks with 50,000 pounds of dynamite
  at Hallets Point, New York
• 1889 Fouque and Levy use photography to record
  seismic data

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Early History

• 1912 Submarine Signal Corp. Used sound in water
  to send Morse Code to ships 20 words per
  minute80 km range

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Geophysicists have No Credibility

• 1914 Capt. Conrad Schlumberger uses sound to
  locate Big Bertha, the German artillery piece

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Seismic Reflection Method

• 1920 John Evans Bevan Whitney patent seismic
  reflection method
• 1921 Seismic reflection work by Geological
  Engineering Co.

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Seismic Companies Organize

• 1923 Seismos Gesellschaft organized. Does
  refraction work in Mexico
• 1924 Gulf Oil uses Seismos Gesellschaft to locate
  Orchard Dome.
• 1925 Amerada forms Geophysical Research Corp
  formed for using reflection method. Contracts
  with rest of Industry. Everette DeGolyer is
  President of Amerada
• 1930 SGRM formedbecame part of CGG
• 1930 Amerada President restricts Geophysical
  Research Corp for internal use. DeGolyer is
  Chairman. DeGolyer and friends secretly start
  GSI.
• 1931 Seismograph Service Corp formed
• 1933 Western Geophysical seismic exploration
  company formed
• 1936 Prakla formedLater Prakla-Seismos

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De Golyer Companies

• Founded GSI
• Felmont Corporation
• Core Labs
• DeGolyer and McNaughton
• Riches arent everythingAfter 7 years of
  suffering from aplastic anemia, he took his own
  life Dec 14, 1956

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State of the Industry

• 1929 only 4 land seismic crews
• 1929 first book on Geophysical Methods of
  Prospecting by C. A. Heiland

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Acquisition

• 1932 first use of filters to eliminate record
  noise
• Beginning of seismic processing
• 1933 multiple geophones per group for noise.

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Recording

• 1936 first recording system by Frank Rieber
• 1952 analog magnetic recording
• 1955 Moveable magnetic heads allow static and
  dynamic corrections to seismic data

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First GOM Seismic

• 1937 Western Geophysical begins marine survey
  operations in Gulf

Creole Field, 1938 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from
Louisiana coast in 4.2 m (14 ft) of water from a
100 x 300 ft drilling platform secured to a
foundation of timber piles.
Picture Courtesy WesternGeco
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Acquisition

• 1938 Shell takes seismic crew 4 miles offshore
  into 65 feet of water
• 1944 Extensive Marine operations began

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Seismic Crew Pay 1939
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Finding Costs Per Barrel 1940
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• In 1937 250 seismic crews in US.
• In 1946 350 crews mostly land
• In 1952 650 crews mostly land
• In 1970 200 land and 15 marine crews
• In 1981 690 land and 50 marine crews
• In 2004 197 land and marine crews
• Lowest level since 1930s

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1942 First Female Computer (Geophysicist)
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Navigation

• 1946 used towers onshore to survey the boat
  position visually.
• 1946 waterspout from dynamite surveyed from
  platforms to know shotpoint location

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Bates Peacock and the Balloon

• 1947 Shoran

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Navigation

• 1950s SSC developed Lorac with range of 100
  miles accuracy of 5 m.
• Today we have GPS with accuracies of 1 m

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Navigation
Courtesy EnSoCo
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Acquisition

• 1950 CDP methods patent issued 1956
• Made Seismic look like a geologic cross-section

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Processing

• 1954 deconvolution for multiple suppression
• 1958 synthetic seismograms

Logs
Synthetic
Real Seismic
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Marine Operations
Balloon Navigation
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Marine Operations
Early Cable
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Marine Operations
Dynamite thrown overboard
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Operations

• Dynamite was Source of Choice

But Not for the Fish
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Operations
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High Tech Seismic1950s style
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Processing

• 1955 Western Geophysical pioneers large-scale
  analog data processing
• 1958 digital data recording

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Operations

• 1965 Airgun seismic source
• Boats used to load 500,000 pounds of TNT
• Scared the harbormaster

The Fish were pleased, not to mention the
Fishermen
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Processing

• 1970 Digital Migration

Bowtie
Unmigrated
Migrated
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Interpretation

• 1972 bright spot technology

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3D Seismic

• 1974 VSP
• 1976 first 3D seismic survey
• Done by both Western and GSI

Picture courtesy Veritas
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Acquisition 3D Seismic

• 1976 first use of multiple seismic streamers
• 1989 3D time lapse seismic

Water flow through The Reservoir
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Acquisition

• 1990 3D becomes cheap enough for most to get
  some.
• 1995 vertical cable.

Picture from PGS
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Processing/Computers

• 1958 first digital recordings
• 1958 first digital seismic processing
• 1978 2-D post-stack depth migration
• 1985 3-D post-stack depth migration

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Computers
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Acquisition 4C

• 1985 AVO first used
• 1994 anisotropic processing used.
• 1995 first 4C collected in Gulf

http//www.pgs.com/geophysical/seafloor/history/ca
sestudies/dbaFile4570.html
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Acquisition

• 20 streamers per boat today

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Where are we going?

• No one can predict but the trends say
• Permanently installed seismic over fields
• Downhole seismic sensors (in casing?)
• More 4D Limited 4C
• Multiazumuthal shooting (for illumination)
• Longer cables, deeper recording
• Denser coverage 6.25 m per CDP-single sensor

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1996 Vintage data
211/19-3
Murchison 3d Comparison
2.7
T
N
2.8
E
R
B
Morton et al, Petex, 2002
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2001 Single-sensor
211/19-3
Murchison 3d Comparison
2.7
T
N
2.8
E
R
B
Morton et al, Petex 2002
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Where are we going?

• Multicomponent simultaneously inverted
• Attribute volumes by the bucket load (invest in
  companies that make disk drives)
• Computers with large addressable memories

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Seismic, Medicine and Landmen
Doctors have transferred many of the Seismic
techniques to imaging the human body
Imaging technology has led to major discoveries
on the physiology of Landmen
Landmen have enlarged Hunger Center which
helps them know where good Restaurants are.
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The End