An automated survey design process to reduce the environmental impact of onshore seismic surveys

Abstract

Land seismic surveys acquired in anything but the barest landscapes encounter obstacles that cause the planned survey points to be either shifted or skipped. Besides these forced changes, an increased awareness of the environmental impact of seismic surveys, coupled with a general lack of trust and even opposition to the traditional energy industry, has resulted in a demand to minimize the impacts of the clearing that is necessary to allow access to the survey lines. We present a method to reduce the environmental impact of seismic surveys without compromising seismic imaging. The process is straightforward and can be applied automatically using standard mathematical software (in this case, MATLAB). For the example shown here, where the line spacing was particularly dense, the impact on vegetation greater than 2 m in height was reduced by 55%. For less dense geometries, where there is more opportunity to offset points, the impact is likely to be larger.