Seismic Fundamentals for Non-Geophysicists


Trainer(s): Jaap Mondt
Duration: 40 hours

Business context

Various kinds of geophysical data are available. They are separated into Seismic and Non-Seismic data. Seismic is, without any doubt, the main method used in the oil and gas industry. But Non-Seismic data (gravity, magnetics, electrical, electromagnetics, spectral, etc.) is the main source of information in very shallow subsurface applications (engineering, mapping pollution, archaeology, etc.). In this course the fundamentals of seismic will be dealt with.

Who should attend

Non-Geophysicists

Course content

We all have seen displays of seismic data in the form of sections or cubes of data. But what do they show and how are they acquired? In this course you will learn to understand that seismic data represents the movement of the surface, resulting from waves generated by a source, dynamite or vibrator, which are reflected by changes in the subsurface rocks. Hence, what we record is related to the properties of the rocks, not only rocks, but also its pore fluids. All information on the subsurface is contained in these recording, but almost impossible to extract and understand. Therefor the records need to be processed to make it possible to interpret structure and content of the pore space. In this course, the basic principles of acquisition and processing will be discussed. But also, insights in advanced methods will be provided. These methods allow a much more accurate interpretation of seismic data. The aim is not to fully understand these methods, but to understand its importance in certain case, to enable interpreters, reservoir engineers to formulate requests for these methods.

The above items will be dealt with in the course; by studying background material and by making many practical exercises to enhance the learning. In addition, you will benefit from Moodle facilitating interactions with other participants and with me. 

Learning, methods and tools

The course uses a Blended Learning approach based on a user-friendly Learning Management System, called Moodle. In Moodle different modules provide study material, videos, and exercises. The solutions to these exercises can be checked and if the exercise is not clear or the solution cannot be found you can submit your "solution" and ask for feedback. Also, each part contains a quiz which is meant to reinforce the learning. The quiz consists of multiple-choice questions.  For each question, all answers can be tried. The idea is that if the answer is not correct, one can go back to the course material to find out what the right answer should be. So, it is not an exam.

Day by day programme