f Cabled versus cable-free acquisition: making the best of both worlds in difficult operational environments

During the last decade the seismic industry has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of channels being used to record land 3D surveys. The areas in which these changes have been most significant have been in fairly open desert terrain in North Africa and the Middle East where recording spreads from 30,000 to over 100,000 channels have been used. During the same time period we have also seen the introduction of considerable number of cable-less or nodal recording systems. This has led to frequent discussions about the merits of different types of systems in different environments. Much of the discussion has been based on the weight of the equipment, battery management, and operational aspects such as deploying cables with many fences or other obstacles such as roads and rivers. Although there are some operational situations which strongly favour the use of one system versus another, there are many times when the integration of both cabled and cable-less systems can optimize recording.