Abstract
Marine seismic data has been collected for several decades in both academia and industry. Early single channel acquisitions were often, if at all, recorded on magnetic media that are generally no longer supported for replay. Although seismic data over 10 years old has limited quality compared to modern acquisition, thousands of survey km of hard copy records remains world wide in areas with no recent coverage. In addition, many processed multi-channel datasets are now not available as digital files for a variety of reasons. Rising interest in continental margin geology in response to climate change priorities and the UNCLOS submission requirements of maritime states has created a demand to re-use these older records where the cost of new or re-acquisition is not pragmatic. Through creating digital SEG-Y files from images of these records they can be reprocessed and re-interpreted. This paper investigates the practicalities of paper seismic record re-use and measures the performance of a typical conversion option as an indicator of the validity of the concept. Examples of applications of the process illustrate what can be achieved and the limitations that exist so that users can make an informed choice of whether to resurrect their information.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carbotte SM, Arko R, Chayes DN, Haxby W, Lehnert K, O’Hara S, Ryan WBF, Weissel RA, Shipley T, Gahagan L, Johnson K, Shank T (2004) New integrated data management system for Ridge2000 and MARGINS research. Eos Trans AGU 85(51):21. http://www.marine-geo.org
Chesapeake Tech. Inc. (2007) ImageToSEG-Y. http://www.chesapeaketech.com/image-to-seg.pdf. Cited 28 Aug 2007
Cohen JK, Stockwell JW Jr (2007) CWP/SU: Seismic Un*x. Release No. 3.3: An open source software package for seismic research and processing. Center for Wave Phenomena, Colorado School of Mines
Directory Interchange Format (DIF) Writer’s Guide (2006) Global change master directory, NASA. http://gcmd.nasa.gov/User/difguide/difman.html. Cited 21 Aug 2007
Fugro (2007) SeisFile. http://www.fugro-cmstorage.com/productsAndServices/seismicDataReconstruction.asp. Cited 28 Aug 2007
GEOREX (2007) http://www.georex-uk.com/services.php. Cited 10 Sept 2007
Halliburton (2007) ProMAX Family. Landmark Graphics Corporation. http://www.lgc.com. Cited 31 Oct 2007
Lovera R (2005) Digitalización y vectorizatción de líneas sísmicas. Conversión de perfiles en papel a formato digital SEG-Y. Masters Thesis, University of Barcelona
Michelini A, De Simoni B, Amoto A, Boschi E (2005) Collecting, digitizing and distributing historical seismological data. EOS Trans AGU 86(28):261–266
Miles PR, Schaming M, Casas A, Sachpazi M, Marchetti A (1997) Capturing a European legacy. EOS Trans AGU 78(50):2
Miles PR (2005) SEISCANEX Database A. NOC, Southampton. http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/gg/SEISCANEX/
Phoenix Data Solutions (2007) SeisVU. http://www.phoenixdatasolutions.co.uk/seisvus.htm. Cited 28 Aug 2007
Schaming M (2005) SEISCANEX Database B. IPG, Strasbourg, France. http://cats.u-strasbg.fr/seiscanex.html
SEG Comm. Field Tape Std. (1994) Digital field tape standards - SEG-D, revision 1 (special report). Geophysics 59(04):668–684
Sheriff RE, Geldart LP (1995) Exploration seismology, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, p 333
Acknowledgements
European Commission MAST project SEISCAN MAS3-CT97-0101 & FP5 project SEISCANEX EVR1-CT-2001-40016. Gavin Elliot, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton for processing a field example. Brian O’Reilly, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies for permission to illustrate a data set. Project partners: Albert Casas, Maria Sachpazi, Marinos Charalampakis, Dimitris Sakellariou, Nigel Wardell and the late Alessandro P. Marchetti.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Miles, P.R., Schaming, M. & Lovera, R. Resurrecting vintage paper seismic records. Mar Geophys Res 28, 319–329 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-007-9034-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-007-9034-5