Priddis 2014 broadband surface and walkaway VSP seismic experiment

Kevin W. Hall, Kevin L. Bertram, Malcolm B. Bertram, Joe Wong, Peter Malcolm Manning, Eric V. Gallant, Kristopher A. Innanen, Donald C. Lawton, Gary F. Margrave

CREWES and INOVA conducted a high-resolution broadband multi-component seismic surface and borehole test survey at the Priddis Geophysical Observatory in late October and early November of 2014. Two types of sources were used; 0.125 kg of dynamite at 5 m depth with source points every 6 m, and an INOVA UNIVIB using a linear 1.5-150 Hz sweep with two sweeps per vibe point.

Four source and receiver lines were laid out in a star pattern centred on Testhole 1, which is an instrumented borehole installed by CREWES in 2013. All four receiver lines had SM7 10Hz three-component geophones at a 3 m receiver spacing. In addition, one of the receiver lines also had twelve SM7 geophones in groundscrews as well as single-component SL11 accelerometers and SM24 10 Hz high-sensitivity geophones, all at a 6 m receiver spacing.

The forty-five three-component 28 Hz geophones permanently installed in Testhole 1 at a nominal 3 m spacing were also used for this survey. Prior to beginning the seismic survey, natural gamma-ray and full waveform sonic logs were acquired in Testhole 2, 50m away from Testhole 1, which was then instrumented with a USSI retrievable clamping three-component fibre-optic system with six nodes spaced 20 m apart.