SEAM Phase II – Land Seismic Challenges signs Midland Valley Exploration as a new vendor

Tulsa, Oklahoma: 10 September 2012 — The SEG Advanced Modeling (SEAM) Corporation has announced Midland Valley Exploration as a new vendor for SEAM Phase II – Land Seismic Challenges. The Phase II project is an industry led consortium addressing critical challenges in the acquisition and processing of land seismic data through advanced 3D elastic modeling. Midland Valley has been contracted to build a digital 3D geological model of a foothills fold and thrust tectonic region, one of three geologic models under construction in SEAM Phase II.

The focus on land seismic for SEAM Phase II was chosen after discussion with industry to reflect the global increase in land seismic activity for the exploration and characterization of conventional and unconventional petroleum reservoirs. The project hopes to advance the state-of-the-art in 3D elastic-wave modeling to better define trade-offs in next generation land-seismic data acquisition systems, as well as to help overcome long-standing challenges in land-seismic data processing, imaging, and inversion related to complex near-surface conditions, such as rugged topography and alluvial fill in foothills regions.

Midland Valley Exploration has been signed to merge two partial geologic models provided by consortium members. One is a cube of seismic velocity in the near surface, and is derived from an actual exploration play in a foothills region of South America. Additional heterogeneities have been introduced in the velocity model to simulate different conditions of near surface complexity varying over the area. The other partial model consists of interpreted geologic surfaces from a seismic survey over a thrust zone. Midland Valley will import the data into their proprietary structural modeling software Move to edit and merge the models and produce a single, geologically consistent 3D digital model of a foothills fold- and thrust-belt region. Although the final model will be generic, the original subsurface geology of the type areas will be represented as faithfully as possible. This will include number and complexity of horizons, type of faults, relative displacements, cross-cutting relationships, and typical spacing of faults and thicknesses of horizons.

Dr. Roddy Muir, Midland Valley Exploration CEO, commented, "We are delighted to have been selected to participate in the SEAM Phase II project. Midland Valley will be providing a 4D kinematic balanced model of a fold thrust belt play using Move. Move is software developed from over 25 years of experience in reducing risk in structure models and understanding geological evolution as a key stage in petroleum systems analysis and in assessing technical uncertainty."

Michael Oristaglio, SEG project manager for SEAM Phase II, commented that "Midland Valley was selected for this project on the strength of its top-rated technical proposal, and for its reputation and experience as a leader in structural modelling and interpretation of complex geology."

To learn more about the goals of the SEAM Phase II Project and how to become involved, visit www.seg.org/seam.
 

About SEAM
The SEG Advanced Modeling Corporation mission is to advance the science and technology of applied geophysics though cooperative industry efforts focused on subsurface model construction and generation of geophysical data sets for geophysical problems of importance to the resource-extraction industry. SEAM provides opportunities for companies to share the high cost of model design and data simulation, provides a forum for industry leaders to discuss geophysical problems of common interest, advances the art of modeling and computation by stimulating research and development and provides data sets for industry benchmarks and educational purposes. The SEAM Corporation was formed in 2007 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SEG. For more information about the SEAM Corporation and the SEAM Phase I project see the SEG website.

About Midland Valley Exploration
Midland Valley is a leading software and consultancy services company providing expertise in structural geology to the world-wide explorative and waste storage industries. They focus on interrogating geological models by incorporating geological time into the modelling process to increase accuracy and reduce risk. www.mve.com

For more information, contact:
SEG Media Relations
Whitney Emerick
Manager of Marketing & Communications
918.497.5523
wemerick@seg.org