We describe a new optical three-component accelerometer for borehole applications. Field data acquired in early 2020 in a fiber-optic-instrumented well in Houston, Texas, show that the new optical accelerometer is a viable borehole seismic sensor, measuring signals at frequencies from subhertz to hundreds of hertz. It is argued that an array of these sensors could be used to complement distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology to compensate for the inability of DAS sensors to measure wavefield polarization. This hybrid fiber-optic receiver array would be a fully optical wide-bandwidth sensor array without any electronics in the well. With a maximum operational temperature expected to exceed 200°C, this array would not be affected significantly by possible high temperatures in the near-reservoir section of the well.
The 2009 SEG Summer Research Workshop on “CO2 Sequestration Geophysics” was held 23–27 August 2009 in Banff, Canada. The event was attended by over 100 scientists from around the world, which proved to be a remarkably successful turnout in the midst of the current global financial crisis and severe corporate travel restrictions. Attendees included SEG President Larry Lines (University of Calgary) and CSEG President John Downton (CGG Veritas), who joined SRW Chairman David Lumley in giving the opening welcome remarks at the Sunday Icebreaker. The workshop was organized by a committee of technical experts representing a good mix of industry, academic, and government research organizations (see box). The format consisted of four days of technical sessions with over 60 talks and posters, plus an optional preworkshop field trip to the Columbia Ice Fields to view firsthand the effects of global warming on the Athabasca glacier (Figures 1–2). Group technical discussion was encouraged by requiring each presenter to limit themselves to 15 minutes of presentation followed by a 15–minute open discussion period. Technical contributions focused on the current and future role of geophysics in CO2 sequestration, highlighting new research and field-test results with regard to site selection and characterization, monitoring and surveillance, using a wide variety of geophysical techniques. While there are too many excellent contributions to mention all individually here, in this paper, we summarize some of the key workshop highlights in order to propagate new developments to the SEG community at large.
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