A SEISMIC SURVEY IN THE COOPER BASIN IN QUEENSLAND

1977 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
David King ◽  
Margaret Falvey

Seismic reflection and refraction surveys in the Queensland sector of the Cooper Basin have commonly been impaired by strongly reflecting Permian coal measures and irregular near-surface duricrust. Penetration problems have consequently frustrated attempts to delineate the thickness of the assumed-prospective Permian section. The problem is well illustrated in and around Authority To Prospect No. 219P, where extensive seismic exploration has been unable to establish whether the thin Permian section, intersected in the various wells on structural highs, thickens substantially on the associated flanks. The Clifton seismic survey commissioned by the University of Sydney has exploited multifold CDP profiling using an array of shallow explosive sources, in combination with high fidelity digital recording and processing, to provide effective penetration in an area to the west of Alliance Oil Development N.L. Thunda I well.The Clifton data reveal an unconformity beneath the Permian "P" horizon near the Thunda well: the unconformity dies out off-structure It is probable that thickening of a Devonian-Lower Carboniferous section is chiefly responsible for the accumulation of sediments evident in both seismic and gravity data between the Thunda and Galway structures. A combined interpretation of gravity and seismic data indicates a complex pattern of faulting not previously delineated. Two dimensional modelling indicates that the gravity field comprises significant components from structure within the sediments, from the sediment-basement interface, and from isostatic compensation at the Moho.Deep crustal reflections were successfully recorded in the Clifton survey using source charges of only 5 x 4.5 k. An event at 11-12 secs is identified as a reflection from a laminated-type Moho transition zone near a depth of 33 km.

Author(s):  
A. S. Еfimov ◽  
◽  
E. V. Mosyagin ◽  

Many enterprises and authors have often addressed the problem of increasing the efficiency of seismic exploration (geological constructions and forecasting) at the prospecting stage in the Siberian Platform (SP) throughout the entire period of oil prospecting in Eastern Siberia. This is confirmed by numerous publications and production reports. Unfortunately, it should be admitted that there is still no cardinal progress in solving this problem. The reasons for the low information content of geophysical materials for the SP conditions in these publications are substantiated and set out in great detail. This is both a sharply dissected relief, and small-block models of the near-surface section, and an energy dissipation in rudaceous pyroclastic rocks of the Triassic, background of reverberation, near-surface waves formed by thin layers of traps in near-surface section, local velocity anomalies in the middle part of the section, background and interference of partially multiple reflections, complex salt tectonics, blocking and tesselation of secondary changes in Riphean rocks, forming tesselation of seismoacoustic properties. These are the main, in authors’ opinion, reasons reducing reliability of the geological section forecast based on seismic data. Some of them are removed using a complex of geophysical data. But tie, backbone on seismic horizons lies also at the heart of integration. Therefore, increasing the information content of seismic survey in regard to fixing the reflecting boundaries based on selection and substantiation, field observation systems and technologies is the most important issue in the problem under discussion.


1979 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Michelle Smyth

The Cooper Basin is a major gas producing basin in Australia. Organic material in sediments from its Permian coal measures has been studied using transmitted, reflected and fluorescent light microscope techniques of analysis. In the Fly Lake—Brolga area, of the Patchawarra Trough, Cooper Basin, the interseam sediments of the Patchawarra Formation contain three types of kerogen or dispersed organic matter (d.o.m.): exinitic, vitrinitic and inertinitic. Exinitic d.o.m. is most abundant near the top of the Formation, vitrinitic d.o.m. is more abundant in the middle and lower parts of it, and inertinitic d.o.m. occurs throughout.A correlation between the type of d.o.m. in the sediments and the petrography of associated coals is emerging. Exinitic d.o.m. appears to be associated with coals that have high vitrite-plus-clarite contents, whereas vitrinitic d.o.m. is associated with high "intermediates" coals. Further examples are needed to establish these relationships more firmly.On the basis of results of coal petrographic studies in other Australian Permian sedimentary basins, depositional environments have been proposed for the coal seams in the Fly Lake—Brolga area. These environments are compared with those proposed by Thornton (1978) using the clastic sediments of the Patchawarra Formation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Wawerzinek ◽  
Hermann Buness ◽  
Hartwig von Hartmann ◽  
David C. Tanner

AbstractThere are many successful geothermal projects that exploit the Upper Jurassic aquifer at 2–3 km depth in the German Molasse Basin. However, up to now, only P-wave seismic exploration has been carried out. In an experiment in the Greater Munich area, we recorded S-waves that were generated by the conventional P-wave seismic survey, using 3C receivers. From this, we built a 3D volume of P- to S-converted (PS) waves using the asymptotic conversion point approach. By combining the P-volume and the resulting PS-seismic volume, we were able to derive the spatial distribution of the vp/vs ratio of both the Molasse overburden and the Upper Jurassic reservoir. We found that the vp/vs ratios for the Molasse units range from 2.0 to 2.3 with a median of 2.15, which is much higher than previously assumed. This raises the depth of hypocenters of induced earthquakes in surrounding geothermal wells. The vp/vs ratios found in the Upper Jurassic vary laterally between 1.5 and 2.2. Since no boreholes are available for verification, we test our results against an independently derived facies classification of the conventional 3D seismic volume and found it correlates well. Furthermore, we see that low vp/vs ratios correlate with high vp and vs velocities. We interpret the latter as dolomitized rocks, which are connected with enhanced permeability in the reservoir. We conclude that 3C registration of conventional P-wave surveys is worthwhile.


Geophysics ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Mitchell ◽  
Richard J. Bolander

Subsurface structure can be mapped using refraction information from marine multichannel seismic data. The method uses velocities and thicknesses of shallow sedimentary rock layers computed from refraction first arrivals recorded along the streamer. A two‐step exploration scheme is described which can be set up on a personal computer and used routinely in any office. It is straightforward and requires only a basic understanding of refraction principles. Two case histories from offshore Peru exploration demonstrate the scheme. The basic scheme is: step (1) shallow sedimentary rock velocities are computed and mapped over an area. Step (2) structure is interpreted from the contoured velocity patterns. Structural highs, for instance, exhibit relatively high velocities, “retained” by buried, compacted, sedimentary rocks that are uplifted to the near‐surface. This method requires that subsurface structure be relatively shallow because the refracted waves probe to depths of one hundred to over one thousand meters, depending upon the seismic energy source, streamer length, and the subsurface velocity distribution. With this one requirement met, we used the refraction method over a wide range of sedimentary rock velocities, water depths, and seismic survey types. The method is particularly valuable because it works well in areas with poor seismic reflection data.


2014 ◽  
Vol 644-650 ◽  
pp. 2670-2673
Author(s):  
Jun Wang ◽  
Xiao Hong Meng ◽  
Fang Li ◽  
Jun Jie Zhou

With the continuing growth in influence of near surface geophysics, the research of the subsurface structure is of great significance. Geophysical imaging is one of the efficient computer tools that can be applied. This paper utilize the inversion of potential field data to do the subsurface imaging. Here, gravity data and magnetic data are inverted together with structural coupled inversion algorithm. The subspace (model space) is divided into a set of rectangular cells by an orthogonal 2D mesh and assume a constant property (density and magnetic susceptibility) value within each cell. The inversion matrix equation is solved as an unconstrained optimization problem with conjugate gradient method (CG). This imaging method is applied to synthetic data for typical models of gravity and magnetic anomalies and is tested on field data.


1990 ◽  
Vol 80 (6A) ◽  
pp. 1677-1695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ik Bum Kang ◽  
George A. McMechan

Abstract Full wave field modeling of wide-aperture data is performed with a pseudospectral implementation of the elastic wave equation. This approach naturally produces three-component stress and two-component particle displacement, velocity, and acceleration seismograms for compressional, shear, and Rayleigh waves. It also has distinct advantages in terms of computational requirements over finite-differencing when data from large-scale structures are to be modeled at high frequencies. The algorithm is applied to iterative two-dimensional modeling of seismograms from a survey performed in 1985 by The University of Texas at El Paso and The University of Texas at Dallas across the Anadarko basin and the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma. The results provide an independent look at details of near-surface structure and reflector configurations. Near-surface (<3 km deep) structure and scattering effects account for a large percentage (>70 per cent) of the energy in the observed seismograms. The interpretation of the data is consistent with the results of previous studies of these data, but provides considerably more detail. Overall, the P-wave velocities in the Wichita Uplift are more typical of the middle crust than the upper crust (5.3 to 7.1 km/sec). At the surface, the uplift is either exposed as weathered outcrop (5.0 to 5.3 km/sec) or is overlain with sediments of up to 0.4 km in thickness, ranging in velocity from 2.7 to 3.4 km/sec, generally increasing with depth. The core of the uplift is relatively seismically transparent. A very clear, coherent reflection is observed from the Mountain View fault, which dips at ≈40° to the southwest, to at least 12 km depth. Velocities in the Anadarko Basin are typical of sedimentary basins; there is a general increase from ≈2.7 km/sec at the surface to ≈5.9 km/sec at ≈16 km depth, with discontinuous reflections at depths of ≈8, 10, 12, and 16 km.


2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 779
Author(s):  
Alexandra Bennett

The Patchawarra Formation is characterised by Permian aged fluvial sediments. The conventional hydrocarbon play lies within fluvial sandstones, attributed to point bar deposits and splays, that are typically overlain by floodbank deposits of shales, mudstones and coals. The nature of the deposition of these sands has resulted in the discovery of stratigraphic traps across the Western Flank of the Cooper Basin, South Australia. Various seismic techniques are being used to search for and identify these traps. High seismic reflectivity of the coals with the low reflectivity of the relatively thin sands, often below seismic resolution, masks a reservoir response. These factors, combined with complex geometry of these reservoirs, prove a difficult play to image and interpret. Standard seismic interpretation has proven challenging when attempting to map fluvial sands. Active project examples within a 196 km2 3D seismic survey detail an evolving seismic interpretation methodology, which is being used to improve the delineation of potential stratigraphic traps. This involves an integration of seismic processing, package mapping, seismic attributes and imaging techniques. The integrated seismic interpretation methodology has proven to be a successful approach in the discovery of stratigraphic and structural-stratigraphic combination traps in parts of the Cooper Basin and is being used to extend the play northwards into the 3D seismic area discussed.


2019 ◽  
pp. 16-23
Author(s):  
A. R. Kurchikov ◽  
R. I. Timshanov ◽  
E. A. Ustimenko

Geochemical survey is commonly applied during geological exploration to predict petroleum potential of large areas and to estimate the content of traps identified by the results of seismic survey. C1-C6 hydrocarbon concentrations in samples of surface and subsurface air, soil, snow, water, etc. are used as predictive indicators. At the exploration stage the capabilities of geochemical methods can be significantly expanded by comparing the content of gasoline hydrocarbons in samples of formation fluids and in samples of near-surface sediments. The method of chromatographic analysis of gasolines Chromatec Gazolin has been adapted for sample analysis. The taken measures to increase the sensitivity allowed us to register individual hydrocarbons C1-C10 in concentrations up to 0,01 ppb, which is obviously lower than their background content in the oil prospect areas. The revealed patterns are used in the geological interpretation of geochemical distributions based on theoretical ideas about the subvertical migration of hydrocarbons from the reservoir to the surface.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-247
Author(s):  
Jaime GARBANZO-LEÓN ◽  
Alonso VEGA FERNÁNDEZ ◽  
Mauricio VARELA SÁNCHEZ ◽  
Juan Picado SALVATIERRA ◽  
Robert W. KINGDON ◽  
...  

GNSS observations are a common solution for outdoor positioning around the world for coarse and precise applications. However, GNSS produces geodetic heights, which are not physically meaningful, limiting their functionality in many engineering applications. In Costa Rica, there is no regional model of the geoid, so geodetic heights (h) cannot be converted to physically meaningful orthometric heights (H). This paper describes the computation of a geoid model using the Stokes-Helmert approach developed by the University of New Brunswick. We combined available land, marine and satellite gravity data to accurately represent Earth's high frequency gravity field over Costa Rica. We chose the GOCO05s satellite-only global geopotential model as a reference field for our computation. With this combination of input data, we computed the 2020 Regional Stokes-Helmert Costa Rican Geoid (GCR-RSH-2020). To validate this model, we compared it with 4 global combined geopotential models (GCGM): EGM2008, Eigen6C-4, GECO and SGG-UM-1 finding an average difference of 5 cm. GECO and SGG-UM-1 are more similar to the GCR-RSH-2020 based on the statistics of the difference between models and the shape of the histogram of differences. The computed geoid also showed a shift of 7 cm when compared to the old Costa Rican height system but presented a slightly better fit with that system than the other models when looking at the residuals. In conclusion, GCR-RSH-2020 presents a consistent behaviour with the global models and the Costa Rican height systems. Also, the lowest variance suggests a more accurate determination when the bias is removed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document