Point Source and Point Receiver Acquisition in a Diffiicult Geologic Area: Chaves County, New Mexico Experiment

Nick Moldoveanu, Scott Totten, Antoun Salama, and George El-Khadir
Schlumberger Western Geco

An integrated 2D seismic and borehole seismic experiment was conducted in 2007 in a difficult geologic area. Chavez County is located in the southeast part of New Mexico, and it is considered by many explorationists to be a “no seismic response area”. A high-velocity carbonate layer in the near surface associated with karstic geologic phenomena apparently causes poor penetration of the P-wave seismic energy and strong backscattered noise. The rapid variation of the near-surface geology complicates the static solution, and this also affects the quality of seismic data in this area. The main objective of the experiment was to determine if point receiver and point source acquisition will improve seismic data quality. In this paper we describe the seismic experiment and present seismic processing results.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90076©2008 AAPG Pacific Section, Bakersfield, California