Seabed Seismic Techniques (ePub)

It has been difficult coming across books that deal specifically on the subject of seabed seismic, be it in data acquisition or data processing. In this book we dwell mostly on Ocean Bottom Cable (OBC) and Ocean Bottom Node (OBN), with receivers placed on the seabed-- hydrophones to measure pressure in water (p-waves), geophones or accelerometers to measure vertical particle motion (p-waves) and horizontal particle motion (s-waves). The discussion is mainly on four components (4C) which more or less covers other multi-component seismic techniques. Whether you are used to the term OBC, OBN, OBS or multi-component seismic, you will find this book beneficial as a text book or as a reference material. The book will be valuable to professionals, executives, students and teachers. It is divided into four chapters, the first three chapters ending with a set of exercises that will be of tremendous help within the academic environment.

The first chapter is an introduction which starts with explaining in general terms, what seabed seismic is and gives its advantages over conventional marine seismic methods. Specific experiences or implementation of seabed seismic methods in some oil fields are given. In chapter 2, some basic signal properties are given, the PS converted wave process explained and the common conversion point (CCP) approximation formula derived. Basic acquisition techniques of seabed seismic are treated, including topics like sensor orientation, CCP binning and shear wave splitting. P-wave to S-wave velocity ratio (Gamma) is explained. The fundamentals of QC and processing of seabed seismic data are treated in Chapter 3 where two model processing work-flows are showcased to explain the fundamental processing keys for a multicomponent seismic data. The improvement in seabed seismic technology has not been without hurdles. Some of the challenges facing this technology are treated in Chapter 4.