Today’s Topic

•Seismic Gather.
•Different types of velocity.
 GATHER TYPES
• A seismic line is made up of many shot gathers, each consisting of a number of
traces. A seismic trace may contain from hundreds to thousands of individual
samples, with each seismic shot generating 24 or 48 traces.

• A typical seismic line will contain several millions of samples. When all of the
traces associated with one shot are gathered together, it is called a shot record or
a field record.

• When several shot records have been acquired, it is possible to sort, or gather, a
subset of traces from the entire data set in various ways. Therefore, we can say
that shot record is the fundamental unit that makes up seismic lines.
 Common Offset Gather Common MIDPOINT Gather

Trace-to-trace time differences are caused by Very important in seismic data processing.
differences in dip and /or velocity.

Common Receiver Gather Common shot Gather

These are not commonly used in processing but can be useful

to identify bad trace. A bad receiver will generate one noisy
trace per shot, and its location with the shot record will move
as the shot moves.
Basic quality assessment tools in field
acquisition.
CMP METHODS

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.
Common Midpoint (CMP) method
• The basic objective is to sample each subsurface
point more than once
• For horizontal reflectors, the reflection point is
halfway between shot and receiver (at the
“midpoint”)
• Survey is organized to sample midpoints repeatedly
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 1

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 2

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 3

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 4

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 5

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 6

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 7

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups Shotpoint # 8

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1
Shotpoint # 1

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1
Shotpoint # 1
Shotpoint # 2

Shotpoint # 1
Shotpoint # 2

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1
Shotpoint # 1
Shotpoint # 2
Shotpoint # 3

Shotpoint # 1
Shotpoint # 2
Shotpoint # 3
Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)

Hydrophone groups

#6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1
Shotpoint # 1
Shotpoint # 2
Shotpoint # 3
Shotpoint # 4
Shotpoint # 1
Shotpoint # 2
Shotpoint # 3
Shotpoint # 4

Midpoints
 Common Midpoint Method (CMP Method)
Fold or Multiplicity is the number of times that the same midpoint is sampled
by different shots and different receivers

Maximum Fold is achieved after the 6th shot

Fold

1
2 Midpoints
3
45 6 7 8 8 13
 Processing: common midpoint gathers

Common midpoint gathers: Regrouping the data from multiple sources such that the mid-points
between the sources and the receivers are the same. CMP Gather

Sources Receivers

S5 S4 S3 S2 S1 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5
For
Point A

Offset Distance
For a laterally varying medium, the reflections within a CMP gather are
coming still from a small region, and the stacking procedure may still give
acceptable results.
 FOLD OF COVERAGE

In 3D seismic processing, the survey area is divided into a grid of 25X25 m

called bin

A fold map or multiplicity map shows the total coverage area of 3D seismic survey.
A bin is a square or rectangular area, which contains all traces that correspond to the
same common midpoint (CMP). To the geophysicists, seismic traces live at the
midpoint of the source–receiver distance

The fold of coverage of a 3D survey is the number of traces that are located
within a bin and that will be stacked. Typical values of fold for modern seismic
data range from 60 to 240 for 2D seismic data, and 10–120 for 3D seismic data.

CMP Fold: The number of traces that are associated with any given mid point
location and are added during stacking to produce a single trace is termed the
CMP fold.
ZERO-OFFSET

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.

The zero-offset concept is an important one and the

method might be used in practice if noise could be
ignored.
•Advantage: Easy to interpret.

• Disadvantage: Impractical. Why?

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.
Simple physical model of
horizontally-layered ground
with vertical reflected ray
paths from the various layer
boundaries reflector
1. Average Velocity
• This is simply the depth zi of a reflecting surface below a datum
divided by the one way observed time from the datum surface. If zi
represents the sum of the thickness z1, z2, z3….. , the average velocity
represents as
 2. Interval Velocity
If two reflectors at z and z depth give reflection having respective one
1 2

way time of t and t then the interval velocity

1 2

3. Instantaneous Velocity (i.e. laterally heterogeneous

structures)
If the velocity varies continuously with its value at particular depth z is
obtained from the formula for interval velocity by contracting the
interval z2-z1 until it becomes an infinite decimally thin layer having a
thickness dz.
d....
Then the interval velocity is computed by earlier formula becomes the derivative of
z with respect to t and we call it as instantaneous velocity

i.e.

4. Root mean square velocity

If the section consists of horizontal layer with respective interval velocities of V1, V2,
V3…Vn and one way interval travel times are t1, t2, t3…..tn then the R. M. S velocity is
obtained by formula
Reflection Seismology

Principle:
A seismic signal (i.e an explosion) is produced at a known place at a
known time, and the echoes reflected from the boundaries between
rock layers with different seismic velocities and densities are recorded
and analyzed.

• Geophone: Devices used on land to detect seismic ground motions

are known as seismometers or geophones.
•Geophone are spread in the region of subcritical reflection, within
the critical distance from the shot point.

•Within this distance the only signals received are the wave that
travels directly from the shot point to the geophones and the waves
reflected at subsurface interfaces.

•The closer the geophone array is located to the shot point, the more
nearly the paths of the reflected rays travel vertically.

•Reflection seismic data are most usually acquired along profiles that
cross geological structures as nearly as possible normal to the strike
of the structure.

•Finally the travel times recorded at the geophones along a profile are
plotted as a two-dimensional cross-section of the structure.
The critical reflection defines two domains, corresponding to regions of subcritical
and supercritical reflection, respectively.
 The Seismic Method
Energy An Explosion! Receivers/Geophones
.4 s .1
.2
.4
.7
0
.3
.5
.6
.8
0 sss
✷
Source .8 s

Some Energy is Reflected

Most Energy is Transmitted

Some Energy is Reflected

Most Energy is Transmitted

Raw Seismic Data
Device Device
#1 #2 For the explosion we just considered ...
Time 0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4 Geophone #1 records a reflection starting at
0.5 0.4 seconds
0.6
0.7
0.8 Geophone #2 records a reflection starting at
0.8 seconds

To Image the Subsurface, We Use Many Shots (explosions)

and Many Receivers
Arranged in Lines either on Land or Offshore