About the Tour

SEG, the international society of applied geophysicists, has more than 30,000 members globally. More than 66% of the membership lives outside North America. There are more than 1,300 SEG members in China. In the past five years, there has been a steady growth of student membership worldwide. As of today, student members make up of more than 30% of the total SEG membership. Currently, there are 650 SEG university student members in China, which are distributed among 17 SEG Student Chapters.

One mission of SEG is "Advancing the science and technology of applied geophysics and inspiring the geoscientists of tomorrow." SEG has been serving as a bridge to promote the technology of applied geophysics via annual meetings, research workshops, forums, and continuing education programs. An excellent example in the past 15 years has been the applications of geophysical technologies to enhance the chance of success to discover hydrocarbons beneath huge salt bodies in deep-water Gulf of Mexico. It all started from a widespread application of wide-azimuth towed-streamer surveys, complemented by the advent of surface-related multiple suppression and RTM image processing techniques.

Today, with the GPU implementation to processing hardware system, we routinely carry out more than 30 iterations of the RTM process on a project in order to fine tune salt models. These technologies have provided significant uplift to the subsalt geologic targets. Expanding the frequency bandwidth of seismic data has been very successful in both data acquisition and processing by the application of de-ghosting technology. Simultaneous recording of both geophone and hydrophone data in solid streamers and/or deploying a slanted cable has been successfully implemented. Other technologies are still needed to enhance the low-frequency components for full wavefield inversion and reservoir characterization. Effective extraction of reservoir and geomechanics properties of shale resources is the most demanding subject today. Microseismic data have been widely applied to bridge completion engineering operations with geology. Better understanding of microseismic source mechanics can further improve our prediction of fractural network volume to estimate shale reservoirs.

Working with SEG, the SEG Foundation has developed wonderful education programs to inspire future geoscientists. Each year, SEG selects one DISC instructor and two Distinguished Lecturers to offer lectures on current geophysical "hot topics" all over the world. In addition, one Honorary Lecturer tours each of the six SEG Regions and one Near-Surface Honorary Lecturer makes many stops. Thanks to generous sponsors, the Foundation offers handsome scholarships to support outstanding geoscientists worldwide with leadership training opportunities and hands-on exploration education programs. Geoscientists Without Borders (GWB) has been the flagship program funded by the SEG Foundation with endowment support by six sponsoring companies.

SEG has played a key role in bridging technology gaps. It is truly the global profession society of applied geophysics.