Source Isolation: A Seismic Shift For Seabed Seismic Productivity

Seabed seismic data have proven critical for addressing long-standing challenges in seismic imaging both for exploration and especially optimizing reservoir development and management, including broadband data acquisition, full azimuth acquisition, gas clouds or removal of multiples to name a few. Historically, OBS acquisition has been expensive and an increased focus on receiver efficiency and source efficiency is essential to bring the cost down. The Marine Autonomous Seismic System (MASS) is a miniaturized long-battery life 4-component node designed for efficient OBS acquisition (Steen-Hansen, 2017). The compact size allows for handling large numbers of receivers during operations in an automated manner. With such significant advances on the receiver side, a step change is needed for source side technology where little has happened since the advent of flip/flop acquisition in the early 1980’s.