In April 2024, Tom O'Toole, Kevin O'Connell, Nicolas Goujon, and Amine Ourabah from STRYDE participated in and delivered presentations at the SEG Workshop on Next Generation Geophysical Land & Shallow Water Acquisition in Muscat, Oman.
The workshop spanned two days and featured insightful presentations by seismic industry experts, fostering valuable discussions on various topics. In this blog, the team from STRYDE outlines the key insights they gained from the event:
Kevin O'Connell, Head of Field Operations
"A recurring challenge discussed was the high cost of seismic operations, underscoring the need to mitigate risks for a solid return on investment. As demand grows for enhanced seismic image resolution, traditional technology like cabled geophones or costly nodes fall short in delivering affordable high-density seismic data.
"This reinforces the belief that single sensor nodes present the optimal solution, streamlining survey processes, reducing health, safety, and environmental risks, and redefining crew logistics so that the field crews can roll more spread and shoot the surveys faster and cheaper.
"Compressive sensing emerged as another potential solution, offering efficient signal reconstruction from sparse data, potentially halving survey costs by minimising source and receiver spread."
Tom O'Toole, Product Manager
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"I was really proud to see so many talks that showcased projects using STRYDE's system.
"One major insight stood out: managing individual nodes in camp for charging and harvesting is orders of magnitude is more efficient with STRYDE. All other nodal systems require manual handling of each individual node in camp, which just isn't feasible when you are rolling tens of thousands of nodes daily. This reaffirmed my belief that STRYDE remains the only practical choice for large-scale nodal operations.
"Future-proofing" is also an important consideration. Given the time, effort, and cost of land seismic acquisition, all newly commissioned surveys should aim to "do it once and do it right", even if the design stretches current processing capabilities to the limit. When choosing between ultra-dense single-sensor or cabled survey designs, the future value of processing the full single-sensor dataset should be considered in addition to today's processing of the digitally-group-formed data."
Amine Ourabah, Chief Geophysicist
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"The general consensus was clear: the future of land seismic acquisition lies in high-trace density acquisition, offering substantial enhancements in the quality of the resulting images and seismic attributes. Thanks to a combination of compact and affordable receivers with high-productivity source techniques, companies can now obtain high-trace density seismic data at comparable costs to traditional sparse surveys, empowering them to make better-informed decisions.
"It was motivating to witness experts devising strategies to tackle land access obstacles using contemporary source and receiver technologies, all while integrating modern processing techniques into survey design. This integration is crucial for optimising survey operations and ensuring swift data turnaround times."
Nicolas Goujon, Chief Scientist
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"I was pleased to observe the increasing adoption of single-sensor nodal technology as the primary method for seismic data acquisition. It's extremely gratifying to witness the market's growing confidence in the efficacy of this approach following its proven successes in survey efficiency and data reliability over the past few years.
"Notably, the concern regarding the absence of real-time data QC functionality appears to be diminishing, as the market increasingly recognises that real-time QC isn't essential and, in certain instances, isn't even specified in tender requirements.
"Transitioning from traditional cabled geophone arrays to nodal technology, and further advancing into single-sensor nodal technology, may seem intimidating initially. However, the outcomes are undeniable, as evidenced by the increasing demand for single-sensor nodes and a growing market uptake of this, across all industries. We are now even seeing other node manufacturers following suit and investing resources into the development of new, autonomous single-sensor nodes, which further solidifies this positive transition."
Thank you to the event organisers and technical committee who held another fantastic event!