1st EAGE/GRSG Remote Sensing Workshop

Surface deformation monitoring can provide valuable information in assessing the environmental impact of fluid injection and/or extraction activities, evaluating volume/pressure changes in a reservoir, as well as estimating other geophysical parameters. InSAR technologies, providing high-quality, remotely acquired data about surface deformation affecting large areas, are relatively low in cost and their information adds significant value, if properly interpreted and integrated with more conventional data. Since 2001 ENI has financed projects based on InSAR data, first for environmental assessment and then for reservoir monitoring. Enviromental monitoring with SqueeSAR over large areas is now routinely performed by ENI and these data are integrated with more conventional monitoring data in order to improve deformation extension and evolution information. In parallel, Stogit has used these techniques for the standard monitoring of underground natural gas storage fileds. Long-time records of injected/extracted gas volumes, together with the multi-year displacement data set provided by SqueeSAR analyses, have allow the calibration of fluid-dynamic and geo-mechanical models, that can be used to investigate the effects of increased working gas volumes, especially in overpressure conditions. The experience summarised in this paper can provide a useful contribution for petroleum engineers and the oil&gas community in general.

Remote sensing techniques using VIS-NIR-SWIR-TIR sensors, offer a unique opportunity to collect necessary spatial parameters that play a key role for better assessments of mining related environmental impacts. The TIR HSR sensors data, as they are still not well investigated, may contribute to characterize the necessary parameters. An atmospheric correction of TIR (LWIR) data, taken with the AHS multispectral sensor over the Sokolov area in the Czech Republic, was performed. Surface kinetic temperature and emissivity values of the study area were calculated. Some important parameters such as Apparent Thermal Inertia and soil sand and clay content were derived from the corrected data set. The ongoing analysis of the TIR HSR sensors data, ground measurements data and laboratory studies will contribute an additional data layer to the mapping of mining related environmental impacts.

The FP7 EO-MINERS aims at bringing into play EO-based methods and tools to facilitate the interaction between the extractive industry and the society, to further serve as an objective and reliable basis for a sound "trialogue" between industrialists, regulatory bodies and the civil society. To this end, the project has defined various environmental socio-economic and societal indicators that can possibly be dealt and monitored using EO. These indicators derive from both project in-house expertise and stakeholders interviews. Current innovative methodological developments presented here confirm the invaluable contribution of hyperspectral imagery and multispectral thermal imagery in mapping parameters of paramount importance in monitoring impact of mining activities, along with their evolution over time. Thanks to standardized and strict QAL/VAL procedures, these developments will lead to standardized methods and tools to be further used in mining-related environmental monitoring.

This research project uses previously generated airborne Tellus radiometric data (Tellus project, GSNI) and newly acquired data collected as part of the EU-funded Tellus Border project to improve peat depth models for Northern Ireland and the bordering counties of the Republic of Ireland. The theory being tested is that gamma radiation from rocks is attenuated by overlying peat. Improved peat depth models produced though the integration and calibration of the Tellus data against known peat depths are used to improve carbon stock estimations. A 6km test line of the airborne survey is undertaken every 4-6 weeks and flown at a series of different elevations to allow the data to be assessed temporally with different saturation levels. An associated field survey takes place every 4-6 weeks to obtain data on the ground to correspond as closely as possible to the timing of the airborne flight survey. Analysis techniques on the ground include magnetometry, resistivity, radiometrics, moisture content, GPR and peat probing. Results for the airborne flight survey and ground-based data collection indicate that similarities between the traces can be identified. Ground validation enables the effect of changes in factors such as soil moisture to be assessed for the airborne radiometric data.

thickness mapping is limited to 1D interpretation due to common procedures and systems that are mainly sensitive to layered structures. We present a new generation Multi-sensor, Airborne Sea Ice Explorer (MAiSIE) to overcome these limitations. As the actual sea ice structure is 3D and in parts heterogeneous, errors up to 50% are observed due to the common 1D approximation. With MAiSIE we present a new EM concept based on one multi frequency transmitter loop and a three component receiver coil triplet, with active digital bucking (no bucking coil). The small weight frees additional payload to include a line scanner (lidar) and high accuracy INS/dGPS. The 3D surface topography from the scanner with the EM data at from 500 Hz to 8 kHz, in x, y, and z direction, increases the accuracy of HEM derived pressure ridge geometry significantly. Initial test flight results over open water show the proof-of-concept with acceptable sensor drift and receiver sensitivity. The 20 ppm noise level @ 4.1 kHz is sufficient to map level ice thickness with 10 cm precision for sensor altitudes below 13 m.

In the field of spectral signatures we have a large variety and challenges from lab over field measurements to imagine spectroscopy of different pixel sizes. The study shows the systematic variation of the spectral signature measurements. On the example of different minerals we show the variability of the test environmental measurements on the spectral signatures from air dried sieved samples under standardized lab condition to the field measurements with integration of all atmospheric condition, soil moisture, crystal shape, iron content, and texture parameters as well as morphological position of the test site. The influence of all these parameters on the visibility of the spectral absorption features and the spectra shapes has been pointed out. The relevance of the different point measurements (lab, field) in relation to the pixel information and the stability and variance of the spectral signals were discussed. This study focused on the systematical analysis of the influence of various physico-chemical parameters on mineral specific absorption features. The results will be used as outstanding investigation method as well as data base for the classification of data from the hyperspectral airborne scanner HyMap to provide an area-covering mineral map of the study site.

Airborne transient electromagnetic surveying provides data sections with a sufficient coverage to perform 2D imaging of electrical conductivity within the ground. Full 2D inversion using numerical modeling with finite differences or finite elements is still a time-consuming method to process the large amount of data acquired during an airborne survey. We present a new 2D interpretation strategy and apply it on synthetic data. The results show that this method produces satisfying outcomes with a small computation time cost.

The entropy is the special index in the theory of the information and is employed as a criteria for the identification of the system.GIS gives us clear view about the how the different parameter of a reservoir changing with respect to entropy and anisotropy. The concept of the entropy is borrowed from the thermodynamics and statistical physics and it is a basic concept in the characterization of the lithological characteristics of a particular formation .Magnitude of the entropy, which express the degree of the heterogeneity or identification, may be used in geological studies and graphic representation of the heterogeneity of various geologic systems can be analyze by the GIS. Anisotropy coefficient is dimensionless it is dependent upon the ratio of the permeability. So anisotropy co-efficient determine the sequence of thickness of the beds by which we analyze the rock type, matrix, stratigraphy, cyclicity and fluid migration through the rocks.

Remote sensing has found many geological applications. The main problem in solving geological tasks is spectrum mixing. We propose the remote sensing multispectral data interpretation method which decreases the effect of spectral mixing without applying mathematical models for spectrum division. The main feature is successive using of unsupervised and supervised classification. The method was applied in task of investigating lode gold deposits.