WorldOil

Coil-pattern shooting offers step change for cost-effective FAZ imaging

A definition of the American English idiom “go around in circles” is “to engage in excited but useless activity.” In the world of offshore seismic data acquisition, however, acquiring seismic data via a circular shooting pattern has been something of a Holy Grail since the early 1980s. It was theorized then that a circular seismic shooting pattern would greatly improve imaging of complex geologic features, in particular circular salt dome flanks and related faulting. The circular acquisition geometries would enable a wider range of azimuths to be acquired and better define and characterize subsurface features.