Westerngeco L.l.p.

Neil Jones

Ronald E Chambers

Andrew Ashby

A seismometer having a hydrodynamically efficient shaped body containing a seismic sensor or source, having a propulsion unit located and a control unit for directional control of the propulsion unit for guiding the seismometer to and from an ocean floor. The seismometer can be deployed from a surface ship, helicopter or airplane. The seismometer or surface support vessel contains a navigation unit for directing the control unit to a desired location on the ocean bottom. The apparatus provides a storage device for storing seismic data sensed by the seismic sensor. The navigation system sends a responsive directional command to the apparatus based on the current location and the desired location. Upon arrival at the desired ocean bottom location, the propulsion system acts to couple the apparatus to the ocean floor. A flight control system manages a plurality of the seismometers during navigation to and from the a ocean bottom.

Method and apparatus for an ocean bottom seismic acquisition technique

Attributes of a seismic data set that are indicative of the quality of the seismic data are displayed in a quality control (QC) hypercube. The axes of the hypercube may be the source position, the source line, the receiver position and a processing step. In a pre-migration QC cube, two of the three axes of the cube are defined by the locations of seismic data. In a migrated QC cube, two of the three axes are defined by the migrated output bin position of processed seismic data. The third axis of the cube contains information about the quality of the data. The QC attributes may be simple amplitudes, or they may be attributes derived from the amplitudes of the seismic data, such as RMS values and/or spectral values. In a migrated QC cube, the attributes may include seismic velocity, seismic fold and distribution of source-receiver azimuths.

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Richmond, United Kingdom

Neil Jones