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The Importance of Improved Near Surface Corrections for Onshore QI

Corey Morgan

Land Seismic Noise Specialists

Quantitative interpretation (QI) of onshore seismic data has always presented unique challenges.  Unlike its marine counterpart, it suffers from the effects of the irregular near surface – the weathering layer.  This layer of unconsolidated soil, rock, and organic matter with variable water saturation, porosity, and permeability combines to wreak havoc on our velocity estimation, our amplitudes, and even though it’s often overlooked, our phase as well. Traditional methods of correcting for this are only partially effective but new tools have been developed to better address these problems.   Amplitude fidelity, the battle cry of seismic data processing for the last two decades, is no longer adequate.  We must take an approach of “whole data fidelity” to properly mitigate near surface effects. In this work, we present the results of these processing techniques from a QI perspective with examples from three different datasets.

Biography

   Corey Morgan – Director of Reservoir Services: Corey joins LSNS with almost 25 years in the oil and gas industry, starting as a field geophysicist with PGS working as a QC processor on both marine and onshore seismic crews around the world. His early career evolved through a variety of roles at PGS, Core Labs, GDC, and Fugro Jason. The last fifteen of those years have been spent working in exploration and production companies, including Noble Energy (where he had a key role in the eastern Mediterranean discoveries), BHP Billiton, Lukoil, and Anglo-Dutch Energy. His work has included management and technical roles in seismic acquisition and processing, quantitative interpretation and rock physics, prospect generation, geoscience support for M&A activities, and software development. Mr. Morgan holds a BS and MS in physics from Texas A&M at Commerce and additional graduate level work in geophysics and petrophysics from the University of Houston and Texas A&M at Kingsville. He also holds an FAA UAS professional pilot certificate.