INTRODUCTION

In this section we introduce the concepts of seismic acquisition, starting with a simple ray-based concept and ending with more practical details of the typical systems in use today. The contents of this chapter are fundamental to seismic processing. return to contents

ZERO-OFFSET AND CMP METHODS

The simplest type of acquisition would be to use a single coincident source and receiver pair and profile the earth along a line as shown in the adjacent figure. Such an experiment would be called a zero-offset experiment because there is no offset distance between source and receiver (both marked as a yellow dot on the figure). The resulting seismic data will be single-fold because there will only be a single trace per sub-surface position. The zero-offset concept is an important one and the method might be used in practise if noise could be ignored. In order to overcome the noise problem and additionally to estimate earth velocity, the method of acquisition most commonly used is the Common-Mid-Point (CMP) method. The same method is also called Common-Depth-Point (CDP). Neither of the two names exactly describes the method, so while both are equally invalid, CMP is usually preferred.

The general idea of the method is to acquire a series of traces (gather) which reflect from the same common subsurface mid-point. In the adjacent figure source points are shown in red and receiver points in green. The traces are then summed (stacked) so that superior signal-to-noise ratio to that of the single-fold stack results. The fold of the stack is determined by the number of traces in the CMP gather. return to contents

The earlier figure showed rays and the previous figure shows traces resulting from a single six-fold CMP gather depicting reflections from a single flat interface (these could be from any of the subsurface locations from the zero-offset figure). The reflection from the flat interface produces a curved series of arrivals on the seismic traces since it takes longer to travel to the far offsets than the near offsets. This hyperbolic curve (shown in the dotted red line) is called the Normal Moveout curve or NMO and is related to travel time, offset and velocity of the medium as shown by the equation in the figure. Before stacking the NMO curve must be corrected such that the seismic event lines up on the gather. This is called Normal Moveout Correction and the results are shown in the central portion of the figure. The moveout corrected traces are then stacked, to produce the 6-fold stack trace, which simulates the zero-offset response but with increased signal-to-noise ratio. The CMP gather provides information about seismic velocity of propagation since this is the only unknown variable in the NMO equation. If the velocity applied is too low, the NMO curve will be overcorrected and if the velocity is too high the curve will be undercorrected. Both under and overcorrection result in a smeared stack which would be inferior to the perfect zero-offset trace.

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CMP ACQUISITION
While a CMP could be acquired using a single pair of source and receiver pair this would be very expensive and time consuming way to acquire several lines or a 3D cube of CMP gathers. In practise CMP acquisition is accomplished by firing the source into many receivers simultaneously as shown in adjacent figure (a) which depicts a shot gather where a single shot (red) is fired into six receivers (green). A receiver is also co-located with the shot to produce a zero-offset trace. By moving the source position an appropriate multiple of the receiver spacing CMP gathers can be constructed by re-ordering the shot traces (this process is called sorting). Figure (b) shows the original shot and second shot (traces in red). In this case, the shot has moved up a distance equal to the receiver spacing. The CMP spacing is equal to half the receiver spacing. Figure 3c shows how the fold of the CMP gathers is starting to build up after six shots have been fired. At the beginning of the line the fold builds up to it's maximum of three. The fold stays at the maximum until the end of the line is reached where the fold decreases. Questions: 1. What happens to the CMP spacing if the receiver spacing is doubled ? 2. What happens to the fold if the receiver spacing is doubled ? 3. What happens to the fold if the shot spacing is halved ? 4. What happens to the fold if the shot spacing is doubled ? Typically the boat will travel around 4 knots (8 km/h) and the shotpoint interval would be double the receiver group interval. A speed of 4 knots is approximately 2m/s which means approximately 12s between shots for a 25m shotpoint interval. During this time the compressors need to be able to recharge the airgun array before

firing again. If the boat travels too fast then the desired record length may not be acquired, too slow and control of the streamer equipment control may be lost. A compromise is required depending on the geological target and sea conditions. As long as the shotpoint and receiver intervals are integer multiples of each other the CMP fold can be calculated by dividing half the cable length by the shotpoint interval. Non-integer increments can result in some strange geometries such as variable CMP spacing and fold. The following table summarises typical geometries. The fold calculation assumes a 3km cable and all units are in meters. Note that the table refers to the fold and spacing as acquired in the field. These parameters can, and often are, changed during the seismic processing flow. The maximum recording time is that practically established on modern vessels. SHOT SPACING 18.75 25 25 50 RECEIVER SPACING 12.5 12.5 25 25 CMP SPACING 6.25 6.25 12.5 12.5 FOLD MAXIMUM RECORDING 4.5s 8s 8s 20s

80 60 60 30

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