October 9

Fall Exploration Seminar
JSG Dean’s Conference Room: JGB 6.218
1:00 – 2:00 pm

EAGE Distinguished Lecturer
Raymond Abma – BP Americas
“Sparse inversion and simultaneous source acquisition for ocean bottom seismic surveys”

This talk covers the development of simultaneous sourcing within BP for land and marine surveys. These surveys have been spectacular successes and have resulted in a step change in acquisition efficiency while maintaining or improving seismic image quality.

Abstract
Seismic data acquisition is changing rapidly, and one of these changes is the use of simultaneous sources. Only a few years ago, simultaneous source acquisition was viewed as a compromise between quality and cost. We are now finding that we may obtain surveys with improved imaging even while obtaining improved efficiency. Part of this improvement will be a result of improved sampling made possible by the improved acquisition efficiency, but improved methods of separating simultaneous shots have also contributed to the success of simultaneous source acquisition. The processing of simultaneous source data is now based on compressive sensing methods, which includes sparse inversion. These new methods will continue to impact seismic data processing and acquisition as new applications are developed.

Biography

Ray Abma graduated from Stanford University in 1995 with a Ph.D in geophysics. He has worked for Western Geophysical, Shell, Arco, and is now employed by BP in the Advanced Seismic Imaging group in Houston. His interests are simultaneous source acquisition, unconventional airgun sourcing, interpolation and noise attenuation.