Evolution of a Multicomponent Autonomous OBS – The Role of Geophysics

A12 EVOLUTION OF A MULTICOMPONENT AUTONOMOUS OBS: THE ROLE OF GEOPHYSICS Abstract 1 Multi-component ocean bottom seismic (OBS) data for oil and gas exploration have traditionally been acquired with systems in which many seismometers are physically linked with a cable. An alternative approach is to record data utilizing a set of distributed nodes each operating autonomously. The high degree of flexibility in the receiver geometry permitted by a node based system is a motivating factor for employing nodes for some geophysical objectives such as wide azimuth imaging. Our development of such a system through several iterations has provided insight into