Shallow Water / OBC Acquisition

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 Seismic acquisition: 3 zones

Land
Shallow
water

Marine / OBC
Shallow water SW: shallow water / OBC: Ocean Bottom Cable 2
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 Which technique?

Marine / Streamer
Land
OBC
Shallow water
- 50 m

Transition - 300 m
- 2000 m

• Land and Marine well defined

• Intermediate area depends on water depth

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 Shallow / OBC: mixed techniques

Land Shallow OBC Marine

(Small depth – (Zones with (Free area)

Tidal areas) obstructions)

Receivers Fixed Fixed / bottom of water Towed by ship

Sources Fixed Towed by ship

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 Transition Zone

Land
Land techniques
(Vibrator or
explosive)
Sea

Beach
SW techniques
(explosive or
airguns)
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 Receivers – "Bay Cables"

• The hydrophones are linked to digitizing boxes

• Assembled in "bay cables" of variable length (1500 – 5000 m)
• Fitted with acoustic pingers

Box Box
Shallow water One receiver every 25m 9
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 Example: "Bay Cables"
0 60 120 180

60 stations 60 stations 60 stations

Cable 3
Cable 1 Cable 5

Recorder

Cable 2 Cable 4 Cable 6

• « Spread » with 6 cables (3 km each = 18 km)

• Receivers spacing 50 mètres (360 receivers)

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 Receivers Lay out

Water depth  40 cm

Steering by DGPS.

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 Sources - Airgun
• The sources are AIRGUNS
• They are used by groups called
ARRAYS

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 Air gun array – after immersion

The array is towed by a

boat, which supports also
the air compressor.

The source position is

measured by DGPS.

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 Shallow / OBC Acquisition

Two steps:

1. Receivers are spread on

the ocean bottom.
2. The sources towed by
the ship are brought on
the source point
location and « shoot ».

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 Shallow Water Acquisition

• In tidal areas: require preliminary bathymetry.

• Acquisition is done in one tide!
• Includes:
 Lay out and positioning of the receivers cables
 Seismic Acquisition
 Recovery of the cables.

• Usually requires low depth boats (<0.40 m)!

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 Acquisition

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 3D Acquisition: "Swath“ mode
Sources
Receivers

Swath n

Swath n+1

Receivers
Sources

Acquisition per strip

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 3D Acquisition: "Patch“ mode

Acquisition by small area

Sources

1 2 3 4 5

Receivers
6 7 8 9 10

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 Acquisition per Patches

• Acquisition
following a
predefined grid.

• The access to the

patches is tide
dependant.
Reef
Wells

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 Navigation

• Necessary at all stages of shallow water operations

• Present on all boats.
Project preparation: bathymetry
Cables lay out: guidance of ships.
Receivers position measurement
Sources boat steering and source start.
Source position measurement .

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 Receivers- Positioning
• When laid down, cables can
drift.

• They are fitted with acoustic

‘Pingers’.
•X1,Y1 •X2,Y2 •X3,Y3

• A specialised boat with DGPS

will navigate along the cable
and calculate the position and
the depth of the pingers. •Pinger 1
•Pinger 2 •Pinger 5

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 OBC

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 Shallow Water

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