Practical autonomous seismic recorder implementation and use

• US 9,176,242 B2
• Filed: 10/28/2009
• Issued: 11/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Conocophillips Company (ConocoPhillips)
• Original Assignee: Conocophillips Company (ConocoPhillips)
• Inventors: Eick, Peter M., Brewer, Joel D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Murphy, Daniel L
• Application Number:
  US12/607,525
• Publication Number:
  US 20110019502A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,197 Days
• Field of Search: 367/50, 367/76
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 1/20 Arrangements of receiving elements, e.g. geophone pattern
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 1/24 Recording seismic data
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 2200/12 Clock synchronization-related issues

Abstract

Seismic systems and methods are provided to synchronize both source and receiver data using inexpensive timers and/or low energy timers to obtain high resolution seismic data.

Claims

1. A seismic recording system comprising:

a) a seismic energy source,

b) an autonomous data recorder with a field timer that records field time,

c) a standard timer that records standard time,

c1) a control timer that records control time,

d) a processor that corrects the field time from the field timer (b) by using a regional drift, wherein the regional drift is a correction factor calculated using recorded control time and standard time,

e) calculating a regression-based model of the regional drift; and

f) modifying the field time using the calculated regional drift.

2. The seismic recording system of claim 1, wherein said seismic energy source (a) is a ZENSEIS™

, vibroseis, seismic vibrator, airgun, plasma shot, dynamite or combinations thereof.

3. The seismic recording system of claim 1, wherein said autonomous data recorder (b) comprises one or more data receivers selected from the group consisting of a geophone, hydrophone, accelerometer, electrodynamic receiver, and combinations thereof.

4. The seismic recording system of claim 1, wherein said standard timer (d) and field timer (b) are selected from the group consisting of mechanical timer, electromechanical timer, digital timer, and software timer.

5. The seismic recording system of claim 1, wherein said standard timer (c) is selected from the group consisting of oscillator, GPS time record, radio time standard, “

Coordinated Universal Time”

(UTC), and binary coded decimal (BCD) time code.