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- Volume 41, Issue 8, 1993
Geophysical Prospecting - Volume 41, Issue 8, 1993
Volume 41, Issue 8, 1993
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SIMULTANEOUS VIBROSEIS RECORDING1
By J. E. MARTINAbstractAn experiment was undertaken at BP's Fulbeck Geophysical test site to compare the viability of various simultaneous vibroseis recording techniques, which are often recommended as a means of improving data acquisition production rates for 3D seismic surveys. Of particular interest were: (a) the ability to separate the signals from each source during processing, (b) the generation and suppression of harmonics and (c) the effects of any source interaction.
Two vibrators were deployed with a baseplate separation of 10 m, about a borehole containing a vertical array of geophones. Our analysis concentrated on the groundforce signals measured at each vibrator and the far‐field signatures measured using a vertical geo‐phone at a depth of 204 m.
By comparing single vibrator records with similar but separated records from a simultaneous recording sequence, signal separability, harmonic suppression and vibrator interaction could be fully studied.
Separated far‐field signatures from simultaneous vibroseis methods using combinations of up and downsweeps exhibited unsuppressed harmonics and substantial energy from the undesired source which leaked through the correlation process. The ‘up/down’ method was capable of separating the signal from each source by only 12.7 dB, and is therefore unsuitable as a field technique.
The variphase simultaneous vibroseis methods studied afforded some harmonic suppression and gave signal separations of about 30.0 dB. Use of variphase simultaneous vibroseis methods will compromise the quality of the data recorded, when compared with single‐source acquisition methods.
None of the simultaneous vibroseis methods tested provided adequate signal separation and, therefore, cannot be recommended as data acquisition techniques. The ‘alternate sweeping’ method coupled with multispread recording will give the desired improvement in data acquisition rates, while preserving the necessary quality of our seismic data.
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LINE CURRENT FILTERING OF FIXED‐LOOP TRANSIENT ELECTROMAGNETIC DATA1
Authors R. S. SMITH and S. A. WHITAKERAbstractThe VLF filtering technique of Karous and Hjelt has been applied to fixed‐loop step‐response transient electromagnetic data. This allows the data measured in each channel to be converted to an equivalent current‐density pseudosection.
For a conductive half‐space, the maximum value of the equivalent current density starts near the transmitter loop and migrates outwards as a function of delay time. The rate of migration tends to increase as a function of delay time, with the increase being faster for a surficial conductive layer than it is for a half‐space.
Theoretical and field examples show that the currents tend to be more persistent in the relatively conductive areas, so that a pseudosection which is the average of the current densities at all delay times will highlight the more conductive zones.
In resistive ground, it is not so critical to average the pseudosections as a particular delay time may give a better idea of the conductivity structure. For example, the latest possible delay time will reveal the most conductive features.
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THE FRACTAL DIMENSION OF GRAVITY DATA SETS AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR GRIDDING1
More LessAbstractGravity survey station locations are, in general, inhomogeneously distributed. This inevitably results in interpolation errors in the computation of a regular grid from the gravity data. The fractal dimension of the station distribution can be used to determine if an interpolated map is aliased at a specific wave‐length and, moreover, it is often possible to determine an optimum gridding interval. Synthetic distributions of gravity station locations have been used for theoretical studies and it is found that for randomly distributed data there is a range of sizes for which the spatial data distribution has a fractal dimension of 2; that is, Euclidean. The minimum length scale at which the distribution ceases to be Euclidean is the optimum interpolation interval obeying Shannon's sampling theorem. For dimensions less than 2, the optimum interpolation interval is the shortest length at which the scaling regime is constant. In this case the gravity field cannot be interpolated without introducing some aliasing. As the fractal dimension characterizes the data distribution globally over the whole study area, the actual gridding interval, in some cases, will be smaller in order to represent short‐wavelength features properly in the more densely sampled sub‐areas, but this may generate spurious anomalies elsewhere. The proposed technique is applied to the station distribution of the Canadian national gravity data base and a series of sub‐areas. A fractal dimension of 1.87 is maintained over a range of sizes from 15 km to over 1600 km. Although aliasing occurs, since the gravity field certainly contains much shorter wavelength anomalies, aliasing errors may be minimized by selecting the proper interpolation interval from the fractal analysis.
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FREQUENCY‐DEPENDENT COMPLEX RESISTIVITY OF ROCK‐SALT SAMPLES AND RELATED PETROPHYSICAL PARAMETERS1
Authors J. M. KULENKAMPFF and U. YARAMANCIAbstractThe presence of water is one of the main concerns of nuclear waste disposal in rock‐salt. It can be investigated using electrical properties of the rock. Laboratory measurements of frequency‐dependent resistivity and other petrophysical parameters, such as porosity, water content, and specific internal surface area, have been carried out on rock‐salt from the Asse mine in Germany, in order to obtain characteristic resistivity responses for the evaluation of geoelectric field methods and to develop new methods for the estimation of the water content and saturation. The laboratory method, on a.c. half‐bridge for very high impedances, allows measurements of the resistivity spectrum of rock‐salt in the frequency range from 15 Hz to 10 kHz. The saturation of the samples was varied artificially and was approximately 5%, 10%, 20% and 100%.
The porosity varies between 0.1% and 0.5%, the water content is approximately 0.05% or less, and the initial saturation is less than 50%. The resistivity ranges from 10 MΩm at the initial saturation down to 1 kΩm for fully saturated samples. In the low‐frequency range up to 100 Hz, an Archie‐type relationship may be used to estimate the water content of the rock‐salt from resistivity measurements. The Archie exponent m is found to be approximately 2.
The resistivity is observed to be strongly dependent on frequency. The resistivity decreases with increasing frequency, with a greater decrease for small saturations and vanishing frequency dependence at complete saturation. The relative dielectric constant was found to be 6 ± 1. Saturation dependence was not observed within this error range.
The measurements imply that, by measuring resistivity in rock‐salt, estimations of water content and saturation, and thus the porosity, can be made in situ. This is particularly important for the safety of nuclear waste disposal in rock‐salt.
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DEPTH IMAGING OF OFFSET VERTICAL SEISMIC PROFILE DATA1
Authors LASSE AMUNDSEN, BØRGE ARNTSEN and RUNE MITTETAbstractDepth migration consists of two different steps: wavefield extrapolation and imaging. The wave propagation is firmly founded on a mathematical frame‐work, and is simulated by solving different types of wave equations, dependent on the physical model under investigation. In contrast, the imaging part of migration is usually based on ad hoc‘principles’, rather than on a physical model with an associated mathematical expression. The imaging is usually performed using the U/D concept of Claerbout (1971), which states that reflectors exist at points in the subsurface where the first arrival of the downgoing wave is time‐coincident with the upgoing wave.
Inversion can, as with migration, be divided into the two steps of wavefield extrapolation and imaging. In contrast to the imaging principle in migration, imaging in inversion follows from the mathematical formulation of the problem. The image with respect to the bulk modulus (or velocity) perturbations is proportional to the correlation between the time derivatives of a forward‐propagated field and a backward‐propagated residual field (Lailly 1984; Tarantola 1984).
We assume a physical model in which the wave propagation is governed by the 2D acoustic wave equation. The wave equation is solved numerically using an efficient finite‐difference scheme, making simulations in realistically sized models feasible. The two imaging concepts of migration and inversion are tested and compared in depth imaging from a synthetic offset vertical seismic profile section. In order to test the velocity sensitivity of the algorithms, two erroneous input velocity models are tested. We find that the algorithm founded on inverse theory is less sensitive to velocity errors than depth migration using the more ad hoc U/D imaging principle.
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ALGEBRAIC PROCESSING TECHNIQUES FOR ESTIMATING SHEAR‐WAVE SPLITTING IN NEAR‐OFFSET VSP DATA: THEORY1
Authors XINWU ZENG and COLIN MACBETHAbstractA vector convolutional model for multicomponent data acquired in an anisotropic earth is used as a basis for developing algebraic solutions to interpret near‐offset VSP data. This interpretation of the cumulative or interval medium response (Green's tensor) for shear waves, determines a polarization azimuth for the leading shear wave and the time‐delay between the fast and slow split waves. The algebraic solutions effectively implement least‐squares eigenanalysis or singular value decomposition. Although the methodology for shear‐wave analysis is strictly relevant to a transmission response, it can be adapted to surface data for a uniform anisotropic overburden. The techniques perform well when calibrated and tested using synthetic seismograms from various anisotropic models. Noise tests demonstrate the sensitivity of the interval measurements to local interferences, particularly if the shear waves are generated by one source. Although the algorithms are faster than numerical search routines, this is not seen as their major advantage. The solutions may have potential in near real‐time interpretation of shear‐wave data in well logging, where they may be coded on a microchip to provide a direct stream of separated shear waves, or polarization and birefringence information. There may also be some benefit for large prestack multicomponent surface data sets, where the solutions provide a direct transformation to the split‐shear‐wave components, reducing the storage space for further processing.
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 72 (2023 - 2024)
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Volume 71 (2022 - 2023)
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Volume 70 (2021 - 2022)
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Volume 69 (2021)
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Volume 68 (2020)
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Volume 67 (2019)
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Volume 66 (2018)
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Volume 65 (2017)
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Volume 64 (2015 - 2016)
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Volume 63 (2015)
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Volume 62 (2014)
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Volume 61 (2013)
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Volume 60 (2012)
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Volume 59 (2011)
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Volume 58 (2010)
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Volume 57 (2009)
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Volume 56 (2008)
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Volume 55 (2007)
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Volume 54 (2006)
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Volume 53 (2005)
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Volume 52 (2004)
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Volume 51 (2003)
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Volume 50 (2002)
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Volume 49 (2001)
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Volume 48 (2000)
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Volume 47 (1999)
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Volume 46 (1998)
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Volume 45 (1997)
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Volume 44 (1996)
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Volume 43 (1995)
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Volume 42 (1994)
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Volume 41 (1993)
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Volume 40 (1992)
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Volume 39 (1991)
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Volume 38 (1990)
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Volume 37 (1989)
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Volume 36 (1988)
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Volume 35 (1987)
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Volume 34 (1986)
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Volume 33 (1985)
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Volume 32 (1984)
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Volume 31 (1983)
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Volume 30 (1982)
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Volume 29 (1981)
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Volume 28 (1980)
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Volume 27 (1979)
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Volume 26 (1978)
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Volume 25 (1977)
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Volume 24 (1976)
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Volume 23 (1975)
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Volume 22 (1974)
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Volume 21 (1973)
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Volume 20 (1972)
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Volume 19 (1971)
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Volume 18 (1970)
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Volume 17 (1969)
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Volume 16 (1968)
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Volume 15 (1967)
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Volume 14 (1966)
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Volume 13 (1965)
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Volume 12 (1964)
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Volume 11 (1963)
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Volume 10 (1962)
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Volume 9 (1961)
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Volume 8 (1960)
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Volume 7 (1959)
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Volume 6 (1958)
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Volume 5 (1957)
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Volume 4 (1956)
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Volume 3 (1955)
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Volume 2 (1954)
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Volume 1 (1953)