Chapter 3: Seismic Applications

Geophysical methods, and especially surface and borehole seismic surveys, have been used for decades by the petroleum industry for exploration and development. As a cornerstone subsurface discipline, the field of geophysics offers practical tools with which to describe and characterize the subsurface, including the locations and the volumes of in-place hydrocarbons.

In general, geophysical applications contribute to the definition of the technical basis for the estimation of resources and their volumetric uncertainty in the subsurface. Technical advances continue to be made as a result of improvements in all facets of the seismic data value chain: acquisition, seismic processing, imaging, advanced signal data analysis, inversion, and interpretation. The quality of seismic data has improved through time, as much as the ability of experienced professionals to associate seismic responses with reservoir and fluid properties under both static and dynamic conditions. This has resulted in notable improvements in the reliability of seismic technology to support the mapping and modeling of hydrocarbon accumulations. Advances in areas such as full waveform inversion have resulted in higher-fidelity understanding of the three-dimensional (3D) velocity field, which allows for improved estimation of the shape of reservoirs and reduced uncertainty in depth predictions.