Photo courtesy of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau
W-8: Multicomponent Revisited: Providing New Insight or Business as Usual?
Thursday, 26 September 1:30 - 5:00 pm
Organizers: Jim Gaiser, Elias Ata, Henri Houllevigue, Michael Matheney E-mail Contact: jim.gaiser@geokinetics.com Through the support of the SEG Research Committee
Historically, multicomponent (MC) seismic data has experienced variable advancement in its usefulness and practicality in exploration & development geophysics. In the 80’s and 90’s, industry interest for lithology discrimination and S-wave splitting witnessed severe limitations from the low cost of energy, and P to S converted waves (PS-waves) were suggested as an economical alternative to S-wave source surveys. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, PS-waves experienced increased interest with OBC and OBN marine surveys, and as a tool for fracture characterization, and imaging through gas and other P-wave invisible targets. However, the use of MC data waned with the focus on 4D, wide azimuth, long offset, and deep-water surveys.
Recent advances in OBN technology, imaging, full waveform inversion, and characterizing fractures in unconventional resource plays have brought interest in MC to the forefront again. Joint P- and S-wave elastic wavefields in modeling, inversion and imaging could benefit and potentially impact our reservoir development and production business. At least that is the desire in revisiting MC technology.
In this workshop, we will highlight ongoing advancements with presentations on case studies and current research projects for land and marine. There will be ample time for discussion to explore whether these studies are providing new insight and if we are working on the critical technologies for development and production. Or on the other hand, are we in “business as usual” mode with regard to our focus and efforts.
