Practical use of borehole seismic in exploration; goals and shortcomings

Abstract The improvement of acquisition and processing techniques has made it possible to study Seismic wavetrains in boreholes. With careful acquisition procedures and quantitative data processing, one can extract useful information on the propagation of Seismic events through the earth, on multiple generation and on the different reflections coming from horizons, some of which may not be accessible by surface Seismic. An extensive Borehole Seismic Survey was conducted in a well in Conoco's contract area Block B in the South China Sea. Shots at 96 levels were recorded, and the resulting Vertical Seismic Profile (VSP) was carefully processed and analyzed together with the Synthetic Seismogram (Geogram •) and the Synthetic Vertical Seismic Profile (Synthetic VSP). In addition to the general interpretation of the VSP data, i.e. time calibration of surface seismic, fault identification, VSP trace inversion and VSP Direct Signal Analysis, the practical inclusion of VSP data in the reprocessing of surface seismic data was studied. Conclusions that can be drawn are that deconvolution of surface seismic data using VSP data must be carefully approached and that VSP can be successfully used to examine phase relationships in seismic data.