Seismic Exploration in the Ganges Delta River: A Model Case of study in

Transition Zones.
V. VILLAMIZAR & F. ESTRADA
Grant Geophysical (Int’l), Inc. House 176 Lane 2A DOHS Baridhara, Dhaka 1206, Bangladesh.

ABSTRACT shaped). It covers more than 105,000 Km², and

although the delta proper lies mostly in
Bangladesh and India. Rivers from Bhutan, China,
Grant Geophysical has been working in Bangladesh and Nepal drain into it from the north.
from 1996 offering its services to oil & gas Approximately two-thirds of the delta is in
companies in different blocks of the country. The Bangladesh. Most of the delta is comprised of
recording equipment used in the last acquisition is a alluvial soils with red and red-yellow laterite soils
versatile and interactive instrument that allows us to
acquire data on land, in transition and marine zones
found as one heads farther east.
interactive and easily. For such reason the objective
of this document is to give those in the Industry a
different experience in this kind of areas where wide
and deep rivers are part of the design into a seismic
survey. It is reached by combining the experience
and of the personnel involved with some resources
such as equipment using high technology and
accuracy. Boats designed and fixed up for
geophysics operations are part of the logistic
support, also some of them are used for personnel
transportation.

Towards the region of Bengal Bay the climatic and

logistic conditions change considerably; it is an
important issue to keep in mind during the
acquisition period.

LOCATION AND GENERAL ASPECTS ABOUT

THE GANGES DELTA
The Ganges Delta is a river delta in the south
Asia region of Bengal, consisting of Bangladesh
and the state of West Bengal, India. It is the
world's largest delta, and empties into the Bay of
Bengal. The delta also known as the Ganges-
Brahmaputra Delta stretches from the Hugli River
on the west to the Meghna River on the east. It is
approximately 220 miles across at the Bay of
Bengal. Kolkata, India (formerly Calcutta), and
Chittagong, Bangladesh are the principal seaports
on the delta.
The Ganges Delta arises from the confluence of
the following rivers:
• Padma (Lower Ganges) (Pôdda)
• Jamuna (Lower Brahmaputra) (Jomuna)
• Meghna
The Ganges delta has the shape of a triangle,
and is considered to be an "arcuate" delta (arc-
Figure 1: Ganges Delta Image
It is composed of a labyrinth of waterways,
swamps, lakes and alluvial deposits (Chars). The
Ganges delta is separated into two parts: the
eastern (active), and the western (less active) part.
Between 115 and 143 million people live on
the delta despite risks from floods caused by
monsoons, heavy runoff from the melting snows of
the Himalayas and tropical cyclones. A large part
of the nation of Bangladesh lies in the Ganges
Delta and many of the country's people depend on
the delta for survival.
It is believed that upwards of 300 million
people are supported by the Ganges Delta and
approximately 400 million people live in the
Ganges River Basin making it the most populous
river basin in the world. Most of the Ganges Delta
has a population density of more than 520 people
per square mile making it one of the most densely
populated regions on earth.
Approximately two-thirds of the Bangladesh
people work in agriculture and grow crops on the
fertile floodplains of the delta. The major crops that
are grown in the Ganges Delta are jute, tea, and
rice. Fishing is also an important activity in the
delta region with fish being a major source of food
for many of the people in the area.

The Ganges Delta lies mostly in the tropical

wet climate zone and receives between 60 and 80
inches of rainfall each year in the western part with
80-120 inches in the eastern part. The coolest
month of the year on average is January with April
and May being the warmest months. Average
temperatures in January range from 57 to 77°F
and average temperatures in April range from 77 to
95°F. July is the wettest month on average when
over 13 inches of rain falls on the delta.
One of the greatest challenges people living on
the Ganges Delta may face in coming years is the
threat of rising sea levels caused mostly by
subsidence in the region and partly by climate
change. An increase of half a meter could result in
six million people losing their homes in
Bangladesh. Higher temperatures related to
climate change could also bring about more severe
flooding of the delta because of increased melting
snow and glaciers in the Himalayas.
Important gas reserves have been discovered Figure 2: Work Area
in the delta which could play a major role in the
future of the region. Several major oil companies OBC acquisition is much more expensive than
have invested in exploration of the Ganges delta conventional streamer acquisition (as much as 10
region. x $$s per square Km of data acquired). Due to
expense, receiver intervals are typically 50m which
WHY USE OBC (OCEAN BOTTOM CABLE) limits spatial resolution (compared to a typical
TECHNIQUE? 12.5m receiver interval in streamer acquisition).
This is somewhat counter-productive in view of the
With OBC it is possible to acquire data in areas promise of higher bandwidth with OBC. There are
where streamer operations are not practical or no receiver arrays in OBC acquisition.
even possible: due to obstructions from well
infrastructure, strong currents, shallow water and
environmental factors. By having two-component SEISMIC ACQUISITION
receivers on the seafloor we can potentially cancel
the marine receiver ghost which typically limits Grant Geophysical has been working in this
streamer recording to 125Hz or less. This allows area from 1996 acquiring more than 6.000 Km of
the potential for acquiring higher resolution marine 2D Seismic. The knowledge and experience has
data. permitted us to develop several surveys involving
Another thing is that it provides more control over different environments such as land, transition and
the positioning of the receivers and more flexibility marine zones.
in survey design with respect to the layout of The crew is a typical sea man portable operation
source lines and density of shot points. with over 1,200 people, 50 vehicles and 20 boats.
Logistically a demanding environment to work in as
If we were to mention the problems for the OBC we the area is dissected by numerous rivers and
might say that the marine receiver ghosts get creeks, some of which are more than 7 Km wide.
worse (have a lower frequency notch) as receiver One river was crossing was almost 12 Km. Road
depths increase. If the two components (pressure access is limited in some areas making for a long
and vertical velocity) can not be made to cancel in walk-in with drilling and recording materials. The
processing then reverberations may end-up worse marine recording crew is available to deploy
on OBC data than on streamer data and ghosts will marine cables, sensors and shoot with the
have a more limiting effect on seismic bandwidth. gunboat.
The ARAM ARIES® recording system was the
equipment used for this job. It is a redundant
telemetry, error-free data recovery and lighter
weight equipment; the ARAM ARIES UNI-RAM®
for transition zone operations is an excellent
solution because to change from land to marine
environment is easy. For that reason the system is
considered interactive and versatile for this survey
acquisition. These units incorporated lithium-ion
battery technology.
Figure 3: Laying Out Cable and UNI-RAM® Units
The boats are fundamental resources during this
operation, some of them are used to deploy and
pick up the cables in the rivers. The 32’ DIB
(Demaree Inflatable Boats) is a rugged hard-deck,
inflatable hull, self-bailing workboat with installed
navigation system. It is comprised of a ruggedized
computer, Trimble® GPS receiver, Sonardyne®
Acoustic ranging system and the navigation
software. After layout the true position of the
receivers was determined using the Sonardyne®
Acoustic Ranging System with the transponders
attached to the hydrophones. The system uses
acoustic units and a surface positioning system
mounted on floats or a boat for the positioning
process. The intelligent acoustic unit is used to
interrogate the transponder beacons. The TZ/OBC
system uses a combination of acoustic range
measurements, surface positions and depth
measurements to compute the positions of
beacons on the seabed. As well as the position of
the system will compute an estimate of the
accuracy of each position based on the
measurements made.
If the receiver position were found to be
outside specifications before the line was shot then
the cable would be picked up and re-laid. On some
occasions after seismic acquisition it was found
that the layout positions were outside of the
specifications. The reason for this was the tide or
fishing boats would carry the cable off line after
position of the hydrophones had first been
recorded using the Sonardyne® system but before
the line was shot. Final receiver positions were
adopted from Sonardyne® whilst the intermediate
stations were interpolated by incorporating these
positions and relationships to receiver layout
values. Acoustic positioning techniques are an
important tool in marine operations as cable has a
tendency to move due to local conditions such as
wind, tide and currents. As a result the speed of
the sound in the water is required for processing.
This value was determined using an Odom
Hydrographic Digibar Pro velocity meter and the
mean value calculated from the observations
around the prospect was 1482 m/s.
Figure 4: Transponder on the Bottom of the Seabed
The system can be used to position from one to
many hundreds of beacons. The method used to
position a single beacon is similar to the ‘Box-in’
technique that has been used for many years in
the offshore industry. There are two differences
between the method used by the TZ/OBC system
and existing techniques:
a) Previous systems would collect acoustic
range and surface position information and
then process it once it was all collected.
Instead of collecting a number of acoustic
range measurements with associated
surface positions and then processing
them, the TZ/OBC system uses the
 measurements to compute positions as The array of the four guns used the Harmonic
they are made. Mode with each gun volume set at G75xI75 cubic
inches. The shooting system is Long Shot Air Gun
b) Previous systems would only position one Controller; the pressure 2000 psi.
beacon at a time. The TZ/OBC technique
can be used to position a number of
beacons simultaneously so the system can
compute a better estimate of position for
the beacons then could be computed if
the beacons were positioned separately.
The system uses knowledge of how the
acoustic range measurements were made
to compute a better answer.

Figure 5: Sonardyne® Acoustic System

Figure 7: Air Gun

A small gunboat was available usually in order

to acquire data in shallow depths. The VSGA (Very
Shalow Gun Array) is a system designed to shoot
in shallow depths where the Main Gunboat could
not acquire data properly. New technologies such
The Gunboat is an appropriate vessel named as VSGA work in very shallow depths less than 2
The Black Jack. The guns were positioned at a meters. A small boat with a mini gun arrays is the
fixed depth below the water surface depending on best option.
the water depth at the time of recording; this depth
was 2.0 or 3.0 m. The navigation system was
configured to activate the firing sequence 1.9 sec
prior to arriving at the sot point location. It was the
turnaround time necessary to enable the recording
system to arm. The navigation software would
send a signal to the recorder and the navigation
software would also receive the signal and record
the position at which the guns fired. The inline error
for the source locations was generally less than 0.5
m.

Fig 8: VSGA on Dib Boat

The VSGA is composed of 6 storage cylinders

Figure 6: Black Jack - Gunboat
with a work capacity of 50 liters and a maximum
service pressure of storage array of 350 Bar. The
time to fill the storage cylinders from the
compressor through the service pressure range is
approximately 3 hours. The gun array capacity is
300 cubic inches and the working pressure is 2000
psi. 75 shots could be liberated from the storage
array through the service pressure range. The
charge time of the gun array is calculated at
approximately 20 seconds.
Figure 8: VSGA
Other boats such as DIB’s of 17’ and 23’ were
used for personnel transportation along the rivers
fulfilling all safety standards. Sometimes in one of
the 23’ boats the recording instrument was
installed when it was necessary to facilitate the
transportation. The recording box could be
assembled perfectly into the dib boat.
Figure 9: Dib Boat 17’ For Personnel Transportation
Figure 10: Recording Boat
Due to the climate conditions in Bangladesh
you frequently find swamp zones in a big
percentage of the area. For that reason the
flushing and loading activities could be done safely
by following the established procedures.
Fig 10: Flushing Crew
CONCLUSIONS
Grant Geophysical with its experience in
Bangladesh has successfully completed the
acquisition of seismic surveys and has been
positioned in the industry as an interesting option
at the moment to acquire data in some places
where the environmental or geographical
conditions are extreme. Our inventory of modern
equipment and the experienced professional staff
in this type of jobs let us be a leading company
resolving the requirements of our Clients.
Technology is all the time changing offering us
better and improved options in order to offer the oil
industry the best quality data with high HSE
standards.
Specific problems like cables drags caused by
fishing boats, strong current and so on are now in
the past while acoustic solutions allow us to access
real and reliable coordinates for final locations.
REFERENCES
Beresford., G. 2005, OBC Acquisition and Processing
for Grant Geophysical. Singapore.
Holt, P.R., Acoustic Positioning System, Sonardyne
International Limited.
Geo-X Systems Ltd. 2005, Aram Aries Specifications.
Calgary, Canada.
Sercel – Marine Source Division. 2004. G.I. Gun.
Manual Specifications. Houston, TX.
Seisline Magazine, Spring 2006, Acquisition and
Processing in Bangladesh. Houston, TX.
VSGA