Tgs-Nopec Geophysical Company

Gx Technology Corporation

Exion Technologies Corp.

Nikolaos Bernitsas

Timothy A Dudley

David Brookes

Andre' W Olivier

Paul Farmer

Darrell Burch

Kenneth Graeme Williamson

Joseph Richard Gagliardi

Ronald K Barry

David James Brookes

David Ridyard

An autonomous sensor node for undersea seismic surveying is formed as a sphere with density similar to sea water in order to minimize effects of noise. The node is capable of measuring both seismic pressure waves and water-borne particle velocity in three dimensions. The node floats above the seafloor to greatly decrease the impact of shear wave noise contamination generated by seabed waves. The node is attached to an anchor resting on the seabed by a tether. The tether is configured to prevent transfer of any tensile forces caused by shear waves in the seabed stratum from the anchor to the node. The tether may have a varying density along its length to entirely attenuate any force transfer from the seafloor.

Neutrally buoyant particle velocity sensor

The embodiments herein describe a seismic source that includes at least two firing heads connected to a shared reservoir of compressed gas. When underwater, a controller can instruct the firing heads to fire at the same time or at different times to create gas bubbles that generate seismic energy for identifying structures underneath a body of water. If the firing heads fire at the same, the resulting gas bubble may coalesce to form a single bubble, depending on the size of the respective bubbles and the separation distance between the firing heads. In one embodiment, the firing heads are attached at opposite ends of the shared reservoir (although this is not a requirement). The length of the reservoir, which dictates in part the separation distance of the firing heads, can be set so that gas bubbles generated by the firing heads at substantially the same time coalesce.

Seismic source apparatus

A method for improving illumination analysis in seismic data having steps of: selecting a model of the medium, a source and a receiver, a reflecting surface, finding a reflection point and the associated Fresnel zone according to Fermat principle using ray tracing, calculating the illumination in the Fresnel zone using the wave equation, repeating the illumination calculation for all frequencies all points on the reflecting surface and all source and the receiver pairs. The resulting illumination image may be used to assess the quality of or improve the seismic image of the same medium.

Subsurface illumination, a hybrid wave equation-ray-tracing method

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Sugar Land, TX, United States of America

Nikolaos Bernitsas