Examples of Seismic Shallow Subsurface Characterisation and Deep Electromagnetic Monitoring

Abstract

Difficulties in detecting and characterising shallow objects close the surface with seismic shear waves are often problematic because of dominant surface waves. By sequencing a specific combination of two data driven processing steps followed by diffraction tomography can overcome these problems. Small scattering objects become visible in the final image that can have importance of the understanding of subsurface locations, such as areas of archaeological interest. On the other hand, deep changes in the electric resistivity on land are often problematic to detect and especially to monitor time-lapse change over long periods of time. The usual electrodes slowly erode and vanish. Geothermal heat production environments often lead to changes in the resistivity between in-situ water-filled formations and cooler injected water-filled formations of less than one order of magnitude. A dedicated set of capacitively coupled electrode could overcome to erosion problem. When placed in a well with composite casing, these could be used in measurements of much enhanced detectability. In that case it is necessary to have electrodes in a zone from below to above the target layer. By changing the source offset at the surface, optimal measurements can be done to detect the small and deep changes in resistivity.