Seismoelectric acquisition in an arid environment

Summary

Most seismoelectric surveys to date have been acquired on a small scale in temperate regions. Our objective was to establish if seismoelectric data could be acquired on a large scale in an arid environment.

In April 2011, we acquired over 21,000 traces of 2D seismoelectric data at an arid site in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The test also included seismic measurements made using WesternGeco’s UniQ singlesensor acquisition system. The source used for the acquisition was an 80,000 lb tracked Desert Explorer vibrator, the largest hydraulic Vibroseis source ever used for seismoelectric acquisition. This large source was used to attempt to overcome the low signal to noise issues inherent in seismoelectric acquisition that have been exacerbated in the past by the use of low energy sources.

We successfully acquired high quality data with coseismic signal present to the limits of our acquisition (420 m offset and 2 s record length). Our current equipment is, however, ill-suited to rapid deployment, having far too many components.

The acquisition of large seismoelectric datasets, such as that described here, enables the data to be viewed in the common receiver domain enhancing data processing and bad trace identification.

Key words::

• seismoelectric
• vibroseis
• electrokinetics