Seismic survey design technique
AssigneeConocoPhillips Company
InventorsJames W. Thomas, John M. Hufford, Warren H. Neff, Gary M. Hoover, Kay D. Wyatt
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Abstract
An improved system for designing seismic surveys wherein the density and areal size of the seismic survey components (e.g., sources or receivers) are selected based on a plurality of calculated templates of the components that are generated using a mapping function.
Claims43
A seismic survey design method for determining an actual layout of first seismic components that cooperates with a given layout of second seismic components to provide a desired subsurface illumination, said method comprising the steps of:
- (a) selecting a mapping function that is operable to generate a calculated template of the first components for each of the second components at various subsurface depths and Vp/Vs ratios of interest;
- (b) using the mapping function to determine a critical density and a critical areal size of the first components based on a plurality of the calculated templates;
- and
- (c) defining the actual layout of first components based on the critical density and the critical areal size.
A seismic survey design method for determining an actual source layout of seismic sources that cooperate with a given receiver layout of seismic receivers to provide a desired subsurface illumination, each of said seismic receivers having a subsurface collection of common conversion points associated therewith, said method comprising the steps of:
- (a) using a mapping function to generate a first calculated source template having a maximum source density;
- (b) using the mapping function to generate a second calculated source template having a maximum source areal size;
- and
- (c) defining the actual source layout based on the maximum source density and the maximum source areal size.
A method of conducting a seismic survey, said method comprising the steps of:
- (a) defining an actual layout of first seismic components;
- (b) defining an actual layout of second seismic components by selecting a critical density and a critical areal size for the actual layout of second seismic components based on a plurality of calculated templates of the second seismic components, said calculated templates being generated using a mapping function operable to generate a calculated template for each of the first seismic components at various subsurface depths and Vp/Vs ratios of interest, one of said first and second seismic components being a seismic signal source and the other of said first and second seismic components being a seismic signal receiver;
- and
- (c) collecting seismic traces for the seismic signal sources with the seismic signal receivers, said collecting being performed while the sources and receivers are positioned substantially in accordance with the layouts defined in steps (a) and (b).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.