Survey design for high density, high productivity broadband Vibroseis point source and receiver acquisition — a case study from the UAE thrustbelt

In this paper we describe an integrated design of the acquisition parameters for a 3D seismic survey in a difficult geological and logistical environment using an ultra-high channel point receiver recording system, productivity enhancement techniques and incorporating advanced processing tools. Advances in acquisition hardware and techniques change the way seismic surveys are designed. These advances include continuous recording, faster computers that allow running more elaborate algorithms and new methods such as surface wave methods to model and subtract aliased groundroll. These new tools require different input data and different sampling. How these advances influence the design process is illustrated using a case study for a 3D survey acquired in the 3 quarter of 2011 located in the largely sand covered thrustbelt area of the United Arab Emirates. The seismic data were acquired using a high productivity technique that uses time and distance rules coupled with integrated QC rules based on active spread criteria to maximize productivity and minimize cross-talk between the individual seismic sources. The initial data from the 3D survey shows that the proposed integrated 3D survey design is adequate for coherent noise attenuation, source cross-talk removal and building a near-surface model.