Use of a Vertical Component of Seismic Shear Waves

Wide-scale implementation of multi-component seismic exploration is constrained by subsoil users’ doubt in its efficiency due to lack of information acquired in field conditions and confirmed by drilling and field operation results. In such situation shear & converted wave data obtained in the process of conventional seismic exploration with monotype P-waves is useful to justify multi-component seismic prospecting. The most favorable conditions for studying a vertical component of shear and converted waves are found in prePolar areas with a high-velocity 500 m thick permafrost layer on a surface of the interval under study. Use of additional information allows to define requirements to projects of multi-component seismic exploration performed using borehole explosions and nonexclusive sources of a vertical action, as well as, in some cases, solve geological tasks at relatively shallow depths. A result of the research works performed since 1997 is a recommendation to realize a rational land multi-component 2D seismic exploration based on a highly-mechanized 3-component telemetric system “MarshLine” being manufactured by a Russian company “Sea Technology” for working in transit zones.