The Blackfoot high-resolution 3-C seismic survey: design and initial results

Robert R. Stewart, Brian H. Hoffe, Henry C. Bland, Gary F. Margrave, Eric V. Gallant, Malcolm B. Bertram

During November 1997, the CREWES Project at the University of Calgaryacquired a high-resolution seismic survey at the Blackfoot field located southwest of Calgary. The 3 km 3C-2D survey consisted of recording dynamite shots into "conventional" (20 metre), high-resolution (2 m) and buried (6, 12 and 18 m) receiver arrays. A walk-away AVO VSP was also acquired by simultaneously recording theshots at four different depths in a well adjacent to the seismic profile.

Shot gathers of both vertical and radial components show good reflection data witha high signal-to-noise ratio. The transverse component data appears to contain very little reflection energy. Examination of receiver gathers of the same station atdiffering geophone depths show that the geophone depth has an effect on frequency content. Structural and migrated P-P and P-S stacks of the "conventional" (20 m shotspacing, 20 m receiver spacing) portion of the survey also posses a high S/N ratio. A cursory examination of these sections (available only one day before publication) show that they adequately image the target area. The analysis of the data from all the different portions of the survey remains as future work.