TEST RESULTS OF A NEW TYPE OF EFFICIENT SMALL AIRGUN ARRAY*

Recently the author developed and demonstrated (Safar 1980) an efficient method for operating the airgun. The method involves the generation of a short seismic pulse from the pressure bubble pulses radiated by an airgun when fired several times at the same optimum depth but with different chamber pressures.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the test results obtained when implementing the same method using a two‐dimensional airgun array. The array consists of seven 0.65 liter airguns fired simultaneously at the same depth but with different chamber pressures.

It is shown that the far‐field pressure pulse radiated by the seven 0.65 liter airgun array is similar to that radiated by the Flexichoc seismic source. It is concluded that the proposed airgun array can be used as a subarray to form an extremely powerful super‐long array suitable for deep seismic exploration.

The author would like to thank the Chairman and Board of Directors of the British Petroleum Co. Ltd for permission to publish this paper. Thanks are also due to Mike Symes and Lovell Cox for carrying out the field tests and Seismograph Service (England) Ltd for providing the airguns.