Leading authorities in a geophysical or related field shared their insights and expectations of the industry in a special session at SEG's 83rd Annual Meeting, Monday, 23 September, in Houston, Texas.
Presentations in this session reviewed the state of the art of the identified topic and provided a vision of the road ahead. They explored what the expected impact is and where future development is headed.
Professor Emeritus John Lienhard added a philosophical perspective to the session. He is author and voice of the popular NPR radio broadcast series "The Engines of Our Ingenuity," and also is Professor Emeritus of mechanical engineering and history at the University of Houston. Known for his research in the thermal sciences as well as in cultural history, Lienhard looked at the road ahead, reflecting on the way we try to achieve scientific and engineering progress. As Lienhard said: "We are here today because we share an interest in visualizing—in figuring out ‘what is' in a given situation. You have a special need for learning exactly what lies beneath. I want to build the best machine or best explain a phenomenon. So, should we start with data or should we start with ideas? We obviously need both; but the peculiar chicken-egg problem of prioritizing them has dogged every scientific or technological enterprise. It might help in walking the complex road ahead, if we trace how these two ways of seeing—of seeking understanding—have gone back and forth for millennia."
Lienhard's out-of-the-box view is followed by a truly birds-eye perspective. Several NASA scientists who look from the Earth to outer space—and back from satellites to Earth—provided a fresh perspective looking beyond established workflows and tools. Dorothy Oehler provided a portrait of Mars and showcased recent and planned geophysical exploration work aimed at better understanding the geologic past of our neighboring planet—with possible synergies on how we explore our own home planet. John LaBrecque presented an overview of all the public domain data NASA is collecting from various Earth-orbiting remote-sensing satellites. He also previewed the imminent step change in data resolution and coverage that will provide for a rich new data source when exploring Earth or monitoring changes on its surface. Justin Wilkinson introduced the concept of megafans—giant depositional features first seen and mapped from space that had not been obvious from prospecting on the ground. Smart combination of those geologic concepts with both regional 2D seismic and well control, combined with local high-resolution 3D seismic data, can provide a fertile framework for HC explorers.
Marc Balizot's talk on broadening geophysics to new horizons linked geophysical progress to the driving force behind it—the need to explore and appraise remote and complex plays. Exploration in frontier areas devoid of adapted seismic grids comes with the need for short contractual turnarounds, and cost containment. New play types and complex geology provide for challenging environments. Both have lead to the pursuit of new exploration strategies and technological and organizational adaptations on the way geophysical surveys are designed, planned, processed, and interpreted.
The session concluded with three more mainstream-geophysical talks—Stephen Wilson shared a story about breakthrough visualization of the subsurface using microseismic data—a technique that is getting much attention with the ongoing emphasis on tight light oil and shale gas. Professor Guus Berkhout's paper on "The Road Ahead in Seismic Processing" envisioned how the next-generation seismic processing system could be comprised of a chain of unified algorithms that cover the full spectrum from preprocessing to reservoir characterization. Last but not least, Professor Art Weglein described recent progress in attenuating free surface and internal multiples. Although this progress and improved capability give the industry much to celebrate, there are also significant fundamental open issues and practical challenges that remain to be addressed—as we move forward on the road ahead.
Stephan Gelinsky and Yoram Shoham, members of the SEG Research Committee, organized this special session.
Lienhard's out-of-the-box view is followed by a truly birds-eye perspective. Several NASA scientists who look from the Earth to outer space—and back from satellites to Earth—provided a fresh perspective looking beyond established workflows and tools. Dorothy Oehler provided a portrait of Mars and showcased recent and planned geophysical exploration work aimed at better understanding the geologic past of our neighboring planet—with possible synergies on how we explore our own home planet. John LaBrecque presented an overview of all the public domain data NASA is collecting from various Earth-orbiting remote-sensing satellites. He also previewed the imminent step change in data resolution and coverage that will provide for a rich new data source when exploring Earth or monitoring changes on its surface. Justin Wilkinson introduced the concept of megafans—giant depositional features first seen and mapped from space that had not been obvious from prospecting on the ground. Smart combination of those geologic concepts with both regional 2D seismic and well control, combined with local high-resolution 3D seismic data, can provide a fertile framework for HC explorers.
