Over the past decades, land seismic acquisition has faced numerous challenges which have hindered the ability to deliver affordable and high-quality subsurface imaging. These challenges range from significantly high acquisition costs to greater HSE risk exposure, high environmental limitations and laborious data processing.
However with the rapid advancement in seismic receiver technology, in particular nodal technology, these challenges are becoming a thing of the past - enabling high-density seismic surveys, advanced processing and increased accessibility and affordability.
In this blog post, STRYDE’s Geophysical Advisor, Chris Einchcomb, explores the direct and indirect benefits of adopting STRYDE Nodes™️ across different aspects of onshore seismic operations.
Seismic survey design and planning
“The lightweight and autonomous composition of STRYDE Nodes™️ allows for greater flexibility when it comes to receiver deployment in comparison to fixed cable systems or larger nodal devices, as receiver density and coverage can be increased in a cost-effective manner.
“Direct benefits: This directly benefits the overall seismic survey design and planning, as increasing the density and coverage of receivers reduces the risk of data gaps, eliminates the need for line preparation and clearing, and the ability to decrease the volume and costs associated with seismic sources.
“Indirect benefits: Alongside the direct benefits, our nodal technology presents the indirect benefits of reducing HSE risks and lowering the environmental impact caused by cable systems. For example, heavy wired equipment often needs to be transported to the site by multiple, heavy vehicles which have a large environmental footprint and release damaging emissions, while our nodes have the advantage of being deployed on foot by less people supported by lighter, all-terrain vehicles.”
Land surveying
“By introducing the capability to conduct mobile surveying through the use of SBAS systems in receiver and source point positioning, you can reduce or even remove the necessity to conduct pre-acquisition line surveying. The world of stakeless land seismic surveys is becoming the norm and has become ingrained in the way crews deploy our nodes.
“Direct benefits: Ultimately stakeless operations reduce the time from crew mobilisation to beginning acquisition by removing the need for extensive line preparation and surveying ahead of equipment deployment. Stakeless surveys result in faster and more efficient deployment, a reduced number of crew required on-site and fewer vehicles to transport equipment back and forth.
“Indirect benefits: Naturally, with fewer crew and vehicles required on-site the HSE risk exposure becomes lower alongside the level of emissions released into the atmosphere. Reducing line preparation and multiple line passes reduces the environmental impact land surveys have traditionally been associated with.”
Speed of deployment
“As a rough guide, a client using STRYDE is able to deploy approximately one node every 15 to 30 seconds with a crew size of two-three people, which makes deploying large numbers of receivers extremely efficient. However, it is important to note that this will vary depending on geographical factors such as the terrain and soil conditions and the receiver point spacing.
“An excellent example of a crew deploying STRYDE Nodes™️ quickly, in harsh terrain - specifically a desert environment - saw 30 people alongside the support of under 10 lightweight vehicles deploy, retrieve and rotate 10,000 nodes each day.
“Direct benefits: These outstanding deployment statistics mean that fewer personnel and support is required to deploy large amounts of receivers, ensuring faster and denser deployment in comparison to cables which take much longer to deploy due to the size and weight of the equipment. Overall, this allows clients to achieve project completion quicker.
“Indirect benefits: Similar to the previous indirect benefits, less crew on-site results in fewer emissions as people are no longer required to use lots of vehicles. Moreover, having technology that is simple and easy to use presents opportunities for maximising local content.”
Quality control and daily line checking
“One of the major downsides of cable-based systems is that if one piece of equipment becomes damaged, stolen or becomes faulty, it can end up increasing unplanned downtime through laborious investigation and replacement in the field if remote from the central base. Despite offering the benefit of real-time QC, the sheer mass of equipment and the burden placed on technology and crew members to analyse, record and answer dense, real-time data is immense.
“Adopting the use of STRYDE’s continuously recording nodal technology, you can deploy dense layouts of receivers, reduce unnecessary downtime and conduct surveys far quicker and more efficiently than ever before.
“In one of our recent projects - located in an area which is notorious for theft - the client reported that they managed to gain back an additional two hours of source productivity every day by using our discreet technology, as opposed to cable-based systems. This allowed the client to cut back on the daily line checking as the fully autonomous nodes proved reliable and the denser receiver spread mitigated the loss of a small percentage of nodes, meaning that data quality was never compromised.
“Direct benefits: Many of the direct benefits from a QC perspective are interlinked with one another. However, the main benefit is the ability to enhance and improve the overall process of acquiring seismic data.
“The size and price of STRYDE Nodes™️ are two of the driving forces behind lowering survey costs and reducing the overall project lifecycle. From initiation to completion, you want your land seismic project to be as efficient and detailed as possible, bringing the direct benefit of time and cost savings.
“Indirect benefits: Using nodal technology that is reliable helps to build confidence amongst users, which is an essential factor when it comes to using any form of technology. Being able to increase receiver density due to size and affordability ensures that you are always receiving excessive high-quality data, regardless if receivers are stolen or interfered with by others.”
Crew size and infrastructure
“The time has finally come to wave farewell to large crews of line, survey and maintenance teams and say hello to small and agile land seismic crews. Depending on the channels required for your seismic survey, we offer three different system configurations; The Nimble System™, The Compact System™ and The Pro System™ with scalable node charging and harvesting nests.
“Direct benefits: Each system provides the direct benefit of reducing crew sizes, leading to lower survey costs, less risk and decreasing the environmental footprint and emissions involved in the acquisition process when compared to cabled systems. In addition, mobilisation and demobilisation times are significantly reduced as there is less equipment and crew to mobilise between locations, helping to save time and money.
“To put this into context, one of our current customers based in Oman has been using our Compact System™ to deploy 166,000 nodes and has recorded a 72% decrease in the size of crew required compared to existing surveys.
“Indirect benefits: The most important indirect benefits of reducing crew size are being able to operate with a low camp footprint and less intrusion, especially in urban or agricultural areas. By keeping your camp small, you are able to better adapt to changing project requirements such as relocating, which involves setting up camp and dismantling, which is very useful in land seismic acquisition operations allowing greater flexibility in planning and agility."
Cost of equipment and operations
“In cutting the equipment cost per channel by up to 50%, STRYDE Nodes™️ have revolutionised the land seismic acquisition landscape by making land seismic more affordable for both large and small-scale seismic operators and other industries such as mining, civil engineering, geothermal and CCUS.
“Direct benefits: Through the use of our nodal technology, seismic operators are now able to conduct high-density seismic surveys for less than the traditional ‘sparse’ surveys controlled by cable systems and bulky nodal devices.
“Indirect benefits: By making equipment more affordable and attainable for a wider range of users, it allows clients to deploy a greater number of receivers in the field, helping to capture more accurate seismic data and achieve a higher spatial resolution of the subsurface.”
Effective and efficient data processing
“At STRYDE, our systems are established to handle data harvesting and create workflows for approximately one million channels with the ability to fast-track data processing within weeks or days of land seismic acquisition taking place - enabled by denser sampling and advanced algorithms.
Surveys using STRYDE technology are continuously increasing the trace density of seismic surveys with the technology breaking high-density seismic survey records with over 257 million traces / km2 acquired in a survey in Canada for CCUS exploration. This is making the visualisation and analysis of the subsurface more reliable to any industry wanting to understand the resources and risks below the Earth’s surface.
“Direct benefits: Fast-tracking the results mean that clients are able to use the information to accelerate decision making. For example, subsurface teams can use the data gathered to identify potential resources for exploitation, allowing them to make quicker and more informed investment decisions.
“Indirect benefits: Not only is decision-making accelerated, but having access to accurate and timely data can help team members to identify and mitigate any potential subsurface risks."