FA I R F I E L D

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SEG-Y Receiver Gather

Format
Specifications

Proprietary Information
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REVISION HISTORY
Rev Date Author Description
1.0 13-June-12 SKB Initial.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 PURPOSE .............................................................................................................................................. 1

2 GLOSSARY ........................................................................................................................................... 1

3 CONSTRAINTS .................................................................................................................................... 1

4 RECORD FORMAT ............................................................................................................................. 1

5 STORAGE UNIT LABEL .................................................................................................................... 2

6 RECEIVER RECORD HEADER DEFINITIONS............................................................................. 3

6.1 TEXTUAL FILE HEADER .................................................................................................................... 3
6.1.1 Textual File Header Layout ..................................................................................................... 3
6.3 EXTENDED TEXTUAL HEADERS........................................................................................................ 6
6.4 TRACE HEADER ................................................................................................................................ 6
7 RECORD ORGANIZATION FOR TAPE MEDIA ......................................................................... 10

8 FILE SYSTEM FORMAT CONVENTIONS ................................................................................... 11

8.1 DIRECTORY AND FILE ORGANIZATION ........................................................................................... 11
8.1.1 Receiver Point File Naming................................................................................................... 11
8.1.2 Receiver Point File Format .................................................................................................... 11
8.2 AUXILIARY FILES ........................................................................................................................... 11
8.2.1 Storage Label File Naming .................................................................................................... 11
8.2.2 Storage Label File Format ..................................................................................................... 11

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1 PURPOSE

The purpose of this document is to describe a SEG-Y Rev 1 compliant receiver gather file format for
Fairfield.

Fairfield Industries retains the right to change this document at any time and does not guarantee it to be
100% accurate, however every effort will be made to insure that it is both accurate and complete and that
the general format adheres to the SEG-Y Rev1 Data Exchange Format.

(http://www.seg.org/resources/publications/misc/technical-standards).

2 GLOSSARY
List all terms and abbreviations.
SEG Society of Exploration Geophysicists

Epoch Refers to Unix Epoch Time in micro-seconds (i.e. 00:00:00.000000 UTC on 1 January 1970)

3 CONSTRAINTS

Below is a list of constraints when dealing with these files.

1. A file will never span tapes.
2. A file may contain multiple shot lines.
3. The system will have the means to limit the size of a file written to tape. This will be
a user configurable parameter.
4. The system will have the means to limit the size of a file written to a removable disk.
This will be a user configurable parameter.
5. The system can be configured to make sure that all data for a single remote unit is
contained within one tape cartridge assuming sufficient media density.
6. All shots or time slices within a file will have the same record length.

4 RECORD FORMAT

A receiver record header is written before each remote unit gather record and will consist of a 3200 byte
ASCII Textual File Header, a 400 byte Binary File Header and a set of 3200 byte Extended Textual
Headers. A receiver record will contain data associated with a single remote unit and may contain data
from multiple shot lines. When the receiver data is written in continuous (fixed time sliced) form, some of
the fields in the header blocks will vary or simply be zeroed. These differences will be noted. The
following diagram depicts the structure of the Receiver Gather Record. It is intended to show the order of
the headers and data fields within the record. The definitions of each field can be found in subsequent
sections. All binary values are defined as using “big-endian” byte ordering. Trace data values will be
written in 4-byte IEEE floating point format.

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Optional 3200 400 byte 1st Nth 1st 1st Mth Mth
SEG Y byte Binary 3200 byte 3200 byte 240 byte Data 240 byte Data
Tape Textual File Extended Extended Trace Trace Trace Trace
Label File Header Textual, Textual Header Header
Header File File
Header Header
(Optional) (Optional)

Figure 1 - Figure 1 Byte stream structure of a SEGY file with N Extended Textual File Header records and
M traces records

5 STORAGE UNIT LABEL

The first 128 bytes of data on a tape consists of ASCII characters and constitutes a storage unit label.

Byte Number of Bytes Data Type Description

Number

1-4 4 ASCII Storage unit sequence number (“ xx”)

5-9 5 ASCII Fairfield revision (“FS1.0”)

10-15 6 ASCII Storage unit structure (“RECORD”)

16-19 4 ASCII Binding edition (“B2 “)

20-29 10 ASCII Maximum block size (“ 0”)

30-39 10 ASCII API producer code (set to blanks)

40-50 11 ASCII Creation date (dd-MMM-yyyy)

51-62 12 ASCII Serial number (“ xxx”)

63-68 6 ASCII Reserved (set to blanks)

69-80 12 ASCII External label name (“ xxx”)

81-104 24 ASCII Recording entity name (<crew#>,<recID>,<job>)

105-118 14 ASCII User defined (“Fairfield Z “)

119-128 10 ASCII Max file size in MBytes (“ xxxx”)

The following notes are included to clarify the use of some of the above fields.

• The Storage unit sequence number (bytes 1-4) is a unique integer that indicated
the order in which the current storage unit was written from the source data set.
• The Serial number field (bytes 51-62) contains what is commonly referred to as
the reel number.

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• Bytes 69-128 collectively make up the Storage set identifier.

• The External label name (bytes 69-80) contains the user specified area string.
• The Recording entity name (bytes 81-104) is made up of three fields; crew
number, recording system ID, and job name (i.e. “108,0,DeepWaterJob”).

6 RECEIVER RECORD HEADER DEFINITIONS

6.1 Textual File Header

The first 3200-byte, Textual File Header record contains 40 lines of textual information, providing a
human-readable description of the seismic data in the SEG Y file..

6.1.1 Textual File Header Layout

C 1 Client:
C 2 Contractor:
C 3 Job Name: , Crew No:
C 4 Input Reel:
C 5 Line: Area:
C 6 Prospect:
C 7 Country:
C 8 Original Format:
C 9 Output Format: Fairfield SEG Y Version 1.0
C10 FFID:
C11 CDP Range:
C12 SP:
C13 Data Channels:
C14 Aux Channels:
C15 Sample Rate:
C16 Record Length:
C17 Process:
C18
C19:
C20 Comment:
C21
C22
C23 Output File:
C24
C25 Trace header byte locations - integer, long or short
C26 Shot Line: 21-24, Shot Station: 197-200, Shot Index: 215-216
C27 Shot Line X: 73-76, Shot Line Y: 77-80, Shot Elevation: 45-48
C28 Receiver Line: 227-230, Receiver Station: 237-240
C29 Receiver Line X: 81-84, Receiver Line Y: 85-88, Receiver Elevation: 41-44
C30 Record Type: 35-36 (1=production), Trace Id Code: 29-30
C31 Source of Final Shot Info: 119-120
C32 Source of Final Receiver Info: 155-156

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C33
C34
C35
C36 Data Format: IEEE
C37 Dataset Generated By:
C38 Date Output:
C39 SEG Y REV1
C40 END TEXTUAL HEADER

6.2 Binary Header

The 400-byte Binary File Header record contains binary values that affect the whole SEG Y file. The
values in the Binary File Header are defined as two-byte or four-byte, two's complement integers. All
shaded values are as described in the SEG-Y Rev1 Data Exchange Format document.
400-byte Binary File Header
Byte Description
1-4 Job identification number.
5-8 Line number. For 3-D post stack data, this will typically contain the in-line number.
9-12 Reel number.
13-14 Number of data traces per record.
15-16 Number of auxiliary traces per record.
17-18 Sample interval in interval in microseconds (µs).
19-20 Sample interval in microseconds (µs) of original field recording.
21-22 Number of samples per data trace. .
23-24 Number of samples per data trace for original field recording.
25-26 Data sample format code. (Set to 5 - 4-byte IEEE floating-point)
Ensemble fold — The expected number of data traces per trace ensemble (e.g. the CMP
27-28
fold).
29-30 Trace sorting code (i.e. type of ensemble) : (Set to 6 - Common receiver point)
31-32 Vertical sum code. (Set to 1 – No sum).
33-34 Sweep frequency at start (Hz).
35-36 Sweep frequency at end (Hz).
37-38 Sweep length (ms).
Sweep type code:
1 = linear
39-40 2 = parabolic
3 = exponential
4 = other
41-42 Trace number of sweep channel.
Sweep trace taper length in milliseconds at start if tapered (the taper starts at zero time and
43-44
is effective for this length).
Sweep trace taper length in milliseconds at end (the ending taper starts at sweep length
45-46
minus the taper length at end).
Taper type:
1 = linear
47-48
2 = cos2
3 = other
Correlated data traces:
49-50 1 = no
2 = yes

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400-byte Binary File Header

Byte Description
Binary gain recovered:
51-52 1 = yes
2 = no
Amplitude recovery method:
1 = none
53-54 2 = spherical divergence
3 = AGC
4 = other
Measurement system:
55-56 1 = Meters
2 = Feet
Impulse signal polarity
57-58 1 = Increase in pressure or upward geophone case movement gives negative number on tape.
2 = Increase in pressure or upward geophone case movement gives positive number on tape.
Vibratory polarity code:
Seismic signal lags pilot signal by:
1 = 337.5° to 22.5°
2 = 22.5° to 67.5°
3 = 67.5° to 112.5°
59-60
4 = 112.5° to 157.5°
5 = 157.5° to 202.5°
6 = 202.5° to 247.5°
7 = 247.5° to 292.5°
8 = 292.5° to 337.5°
61-64 Remote Unit Part Number
65-68 Remote Unit Serial Number
69-72 Remote Unit Deploy time (MSB)
73-76 Remote Unit Deploy time (LSB)
77-80 Remote Unit Pickup time (MSB)
81-84 Remote Unit Pickup time (LSB)
85-88 Remote Unit Start time (MSB)
89-92 Remote Unit Start time (LSB)
93-96 Acquisition Drift Window (MSB)
97-100 Acquisition Drift Window (LSB)
101-104 Clock drift for this acquisition (ns) (MSB)
105-108 Clock drift for this acquisition (ns) (LSB)
Clock Stop method –
0=normal
109-110 1=storage full
2=power loss
3=reboot
Frequency drift within specification –
111-112 0=no
1=yes
Oscillator type –
0=control board
1=atomic
113-114
2=ovenized
3=dbl ovenized
4=disciplined
Data output method.
115-116 0=shot sliced
1=continuous time slice

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400-byte Binary File Header

Byte Description
2=shot sliced with guard band
117-120 Number of files for this remote unit
121-124 File sequence number within total files
125-128 Receiver line number
129-132 Receiver point number
133-134 Receiver point index
135-138 First Shot Line in this file
139-142 First Shot Point in this file
143-144 First Shot Point Index in this file
145-148 Last Shot Line in this file
149-152 Last Shot Point in this file
153-154 Last Shot Point Index in this file
155-158 Epoch time of first shot (MSB)
159-162 Epoch time of first shot (LSB)
163-166 Epoch time of last shot MSB)
167-170 Epoch time of last shot (LSB)
171-172 Number of channel types
173-176 Number of traces per channel type
177-180 File Number
181-300 Unused
301-302 SEG Y Format Revision Number. Set to 0x0100 ( SEG Y Revision 1.0)
Fixed length trace flag. Set to 1 (all traces in this SEG Y file are guaranteed to have the
303-304
same sample interval and number of samples).
305-306 Number of 3200-byte, Extended Textual File Headers following the Binary Header.
307-400 Unassigned

6.3 Extended Textual Headers

None currently defined.

6.4 Trace Header

The SEG Y trace header contains trace attributes, which are normally defined as two-byte or four-byte,
two's complement integers. This format also includes IEEE floating point values in bytes 127-154 and 169-
196 as noted below. All shaded values are as described in the SEG-Y Rev1 Data Exchange Format
document.
240-byte Trace Header
Byte Description
1-4 Trace sequence number within line.
5-8 Trace sequence number within SEG Y file — Each file starts with trace sequence one.
9-12 Original field record number.
13-16 Trace number within the original field record.
Energy source point number – Used when more than one record occurs at the same
17-20
effective surface location. In 3D, may be a concatenation with Shot Line Number
21-24 Shot Line Number
25-28 Trace sequence number within ensemble

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240-byte Trace Header

Byte Description
Trace identification code:
-1 = Other
0 = Unknown
1 = Seismic data
2 = Dead
3 = Dummy
4 = Time break
5 = Uphole
6 = Sweep
7 = Timing
8 = Waterbreak
9 = Near-field gun signature
10 = Far-field gun signature
29-30 11 = Seismic pressure sensor
12 = Multicomponent seismic sensor - Vertical component
13 = Multicomponent seismic sensor - Cross-line component
14 = Multicomponent seismic sensor - In-line component
15 = Rotated multicomponent seismic sensor - Vertical component
16 = Rotated multicomponent seismic sensor - Transverse component
17 = Rotated multicomponent seismic sensor - Radial component
18 = Vibrator reaction mass
19 = Vibrator baseplate
20 = Vibrator estimated ground force
21 = Vibrator reference
22 = Time-velocity pairs
23 … N = optional use, (maximum N = 32,767)
Highly recommended for all types of data.
Sensor Type
00 – Not defined
01 – Hydrophone
02 – Vertical geophone
03 – Inline geophone
04 – Cross-line geophone
05 – Other horizontal geophone
06 – Vertical accelerometer
07 – Inline accelerometer
08 – Cross-line accelerometer
31-32
09 – Other horizontal accelerometer
10 - Geophone, X
11 - Geophone, Y
12 - Geophone, Z
13 - Geophone, Horizontal, North
14 - Geophone, Horizontal, East
21 - AUX, Ground Force
22 - AUX, True Reference
23 - AUX, Mass Accelerometer
24 - AUX, Baseplate Accelerometer
33-34 Remote Unit Channel number
Record type - Test or Prod
35-36 1= production
2= Test
37-40 Distance from source point to receiver group
41-44 Receiver group elevation (positive above vertical datum)

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240-byte Trace Header

Byte Description
45-48 Elevation of source.
49-52 Source depth
53-56 Datum elevation at receiver group
57-60 Datum elevation at source
61-64 External shot ID
Shot status flag
0 – normal
65-66
1 – Bad – Operator specified
2 – Bad – Failed T0 QC test
67-68
69-70 Scalar to be applied to all elevations.
71-72 Scalar to be applied to all coordinates.
73-76 Source Final Position X
77-80 Source Final Position Y
81-84 Receiver Final Position X
85-88 Receiver Final Position Y
89-90 Coordinate Units. Set to 1 for length
91-94 Applied Clock Correction (ns)
95-98 Remaining Clock Correction (ns)
99-100 Alias Filter frequency
101-102 Alias filter slope
103-104 Low cut filter frequency
105-106 Low cut filter slope
107-108
109-110 Delay recording time in ms
111-114
115-116 Number of samples in this trace.
117-118 Sample interval in microseconds (µs) for this trace.
119-120 Source of final shot information
121-122 Preamp Gain
Periodic Data Type – See Note below for element descriptions.
0 = None
123-124
1 = Orientation Matrix
2 = GPS Data
125-126 Periodic Data Version number
127-130 Periodic Data Element 1
131-134 Periodic Data Element 2
135-138 Periodic Data Element 3
139-142 Periodic Data Element 4
143-146 Periodic Data Element 5
147-150 Periodic Data Element 6
151-154 Periodic Data Element 7
155-156 Source of final receiver information
Year data recorded — The 1975 standard is unclear as to whether this should be
recorded as a 2-digit or a 4-digit year and both have been used. For SEG Y revisions
157-158
beyond rev 0, the year should be recorded as the complete 4-digit Gregorian calendar
year (i.e. the year 2001 should be recorded as 200110 (7D116)).
159-160 Day of year (Julian day for GMT and UTC time basis).
161-162 Hour of day (24 hour clock).
163-164 Minute of hour.
165-166 Second of minute.
167-168 Time basis code: Use 1=local ; 2=GMT ; 4=UTC

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240-byte Trace Header

Byte Description
169-172 Periodic Data Element 8
173-176 Periodic Data Element 9
177-180 Periodic Data Element 10
181-184 Periodic Data Element 11
185-188 Periodic Data Element 12
189-192 Shot Epoch Time (MSB)
193-196 Shot Epoch Time (LSB)
197-200 Shot Point number
Shot point scalar. If positive, scalar is used as a multiplier, if negative scalar is used as a
201-202
divisor. Ex: SP 1015 -10 > SP 101.5
203-206 Pre-shot guard band (ms)
207-210 Post-shot guard band
Trace edit code
00 – No edit
01 – Not Used
211-212
02 – Trace zeroed intentionally.
03 – Trace has been edited. Acquisition system has modified one or more of the samples
on this trace .
Orientation Matrix Applied
213-214 0=no,
1=yes
215-216 Reshoot counter
217-218 Source Type
219-222 RU Part Number
223-226 RU Serial Number
227-230 Receiver line number
Units –
231-232 0=Feet
1=Meters
233-236 Shot skew from sample boundary
237-240 Receiver point number

Note: If periodic data type is 0, all periodic data elements are set to 0. If it is set to 1, the element
descriptions are as follows:
• Periodic Data Element 1 - Tilt Matrix element 0 (H1X) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 2 - Tilt Matrix element 1 (H2X) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 3 - Tilt Matrix element 2 (VX) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 4 - Tilt Matrix element 3 (H1Y) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 5 - Tilt Matrix element 4 (H2Y) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 6 - Tilt Matrix element 5 (VY) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 7 - Tilt Matrix element 6 (H1Z) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 8 - Tilt Matrix element 7 (H2Z) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 9 - Tilt Matrix element 8 (VZ) (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 10 - Azimuth in degrees (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 11 - Pitch in degrees (IEEE Float)
• Periodic Data Element 12 - Roll in degrees (IEEE Float)

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7 RECORD ORGANIZATION FOR TAPE MEDIA

The following diagram depicts the organization of the Storage Unit Label and Receiver Gather Records on
Tape media.

128 Bytes

EOF

EOF
Receiver Gather

EOF

EOF
Storage Unit Receiver Gather Receiver Gather
Label Record 1 Record 2 Record n

Tape Organization

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8 FILE SYSTEM FORMAT CONVENTIONS

This section defines the directory structures and file naming conventions used when the destination media
contains a file system.

8.1 Directory and File Organization

The following depicts what is written to the destination file system.

File System Root

|- StorageLabel_xxx.0 aux file
|- ReceiverLineName directory
|- ReceiverPoint data file
Each receiver line name will be a directory on the file system (i.e. 1080, 1240, etc.). Each receiver point
will be from 1 to N files written under its respective receiver line name directory.

8.1.1 Receiver Point File Naming

Data acquired from a single receiver point can become quite large. The data output generation supports
writing the data to multiple files where each file will contain a portion of the acquired data. Entries are
made in the headers (see Data Output Stanza of the Extanded Textual Headers) that depict this (i.e. file 1
out of 2). This concept is carried further when a file system is involved. For example, the data for receiver
point 5056.0 was split into N portions due to the total size of the data set. The file names used on the file
system would be RY5056.0.0.segy for the first portion of the data, RY5056.1.0.segy for the second,
RY5056.2.0.segy for the third, and so on until RY5056.N.0.segy is reached.

8.1.2 Receiver Point File Format

Each receiver point file will be organized as a Fairfield SEG-Y Receiver Gather file format as defined in
the FORMAT DEFINITION section of this document.

8.2 Auxiliary Files

8.2.1 Storage Label File Naming

A storage label file will be created for each tape that is written to the file system. The name of these files
will be “StorageLabel_<serial#>.<index>” where the <serial#> is the Serial number field as defined in the
Storage Unit Label section and <index> is an incrementing number starting at 0 that increments for each
repeated instance of the same file name should one occur.

For example, if the Serial Number field of the Storage Label is 163, the first file for this serial number
would be “StorageUnit_163.0”, the second would be “StorageUnit_163.1”, and so on.

8.2.2 Storage Label File Format

The data in this file will be formatted as described in the Storage Unit Label section of this document.

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