Offshore seismic services firm Shearwater GeoServices has announced a seismic source technology that it says will provide seismic surveys with enhanced low frequencies enabling better decisions for exploration, development, and carbon storage monitoring applications.
According to Shearwater, the new technology - named Harmony - has multiple applications, as it provides deeper seismic imaging, more realistic models of the earth's subsurface, and a more precise estimation of the reservoir properties for 3D and 4D applications.
Harmony consists of modified airguns tuned for bubble frequency locking of the pressure wavefield, with a resultant shift of half to one octave of the dominant frequency, depending on the reference source design.
Harmony uses the position of one standard sub-array and so is operationally very flexible. It can be used in multi-source designs or combined with itself to increase output, or in conjunction with traditional sub-arrays to create a desired output frequency spectrum, tuned for the survey objectives, Shearwater's description of the technology reads.
The enhanced low-frequency content of Harmony improves the wavelet resolving power. This has a positive impact on reservoir characterization and full-waveform inversion, leading to a better understanding of the sub-surface, the company said.
“We believe Harmony represents a significant upgrade to the quality of seismic data which will allow more accurate generation of models and images of the sub-surface and more precise characterization of rock and fluid properties. We are pleased to see that this novel technology has already attracted significant interest in the market with some very positive feedback from clients already testing it,” said Shearwater’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Massimo Virgilio.