Question

Advantages and disadvantages of surface methods, area surveys and seismographic methods in oil and gas industry(Claude, 2015).

Answer 1

ADVANTAGES OF SEISMOGRAPHIC METHODS

• seismic observations are collected at small source-receiver offsets.
• seismic methods can work no matter how the speed at which motions propagate through the Earth varies with depth.
• seismic observations can be more readily interpreted in terms of complex geology.
• Refraction observations generally employ fewer source and receiver locations and are thus relatively cheap to acquire.

DISADVANTAGES OF SEISMOGRAPHIC METHODS

• Because many source and receiver locations must be used to produce meaningful images of the Earth's subsurface, reflection seismic observations can be expensive to acquire.
• seismic observations require relatively large source-receiver offsets (distances between the source and where the ground motion is recorded, the receiver.
• seismic only works if the speed at which motions propagate through the Earth increases with depth.
• seismic observations are generally interpreted in terms of layers. These layers can have dip and topography.
• seismic observations only use the arrival time of the initial ground motion at different distances from the source.