Permanent Real Time Offshore Microseismic System For Geophysical Monitoring Available to Purchase

Until recent years microseismic monitoring has been mostly limited to onshore applications, due to technical and economical problems. Offshore seismological studies have been performed by the use of Ocean Bottom Seismometers (OBS) which are free-fall, self-recording and battery powered devices. OBS's main drawbacks are the limited autonomy and the possibility to access data only after recovering the tool, missing the chance for real time processing of the signals. To overcome such problem in the last years some seismological stations have been deployed on the seafloor with connection to existing submarine communication cables to allow a real time data transfer and power supply. The seismological community is pushing strong effort to get seismic recordings in the oceans, which cover the majority of the planet Earth. The system jointly developed by Eni E&P Division and Tecnomare answers the necessity to install local networks to monitor the production activities in the offshore environment. It exploits the facilities of nearby platforms to allow the permanent real time microseismic monitoring of the area of interest