Courses Taught Using SCIF

GPHY 4874 Introduction to Seismic Exploration (with lab)
This course treats the fundamentals of the Common Midpoint Reflection Method. It teaches an understanding of seismic survey design and its bearing on data processing results. A thorough treatment of processing from field records through datum and static correction, velocity analysis, NMO-correction, and stacking is treated in lectures.. The need to test the validity of assumptions made in processing is stressed. Hands-on processing on seismic workstations takes students from field records to a stacked 2-D section using the Seismic Processing Workshop software. Horizons are interpreted in a 3D data volume using the Kingdom Suite 3D seismic interpretation software.

GPHY 5173 Advanced Seismic Exploration (with lab)
This course is a continuation of GPHY 4874, Introduction to Seismic Exploration. It treats selected topics in seismic reflection processing and interpretation for both 2-D and 3-D data. The focus is the impact of processing on interpretation success. Lectures will be supplemented by a computer lab providing hands-on processing and interpretation experience using principles taught in lecture.

The first part of the course is on 2D seismic processing. It deals with the theory and application of digital filtering for resolution and signal/noise enhancement and with modern methods of velocity analysis and migration. Topics include design of ideal frequency and F-K filters, least-square inverse filters, deconvolution operators; and migration velocity analysis. Adaptation of 2-D processing methods to 3-D will be treated. Computing exercises in the Alumni 3D Seismic Lab will use Seismic Processing Workshop software (Parallel Geophysics Corporation), a user-friendly, interactive processing package.

The second part of the course will concentrate on 3-D seismic interpretation. Lectures will cover applications of rock physics, the use of well-logs, VSP's, and modeling in interpretation, seismic attributes, and emerging technologies. Computing exercises will use 2D/3D Pak (Seismic Micro-Technology, Inc.) for 3-D seismic mapping, picking and posting, interpretive modeling, time-depth conversion, and use of attributes.

GPHY 6874 Applied Seismic Modeling
This course will be conducted differently from other lecture courses in
Geology and Geophysics. The emphasis in this course is an understanding of seismic ray tracing and its uses. Specifically, the course provides practice in formulating questions that 2D ray-trace modeling can answer and in using computer modeling to investigate these questions. Lecture material and reading assignments will complement the computing through an explanation of modeling theory.

Case histories are used to show uses of ray trace modeling. There are computer modeling exercises and problem sets on lecture material. An independent project will be chosen by each student. This is to be a thorough investigation by ray-tracing of a carefully posed problem, often related to undergraduate or graduate research.

GPHY 6970 Introduction to Seismic Interpretation
The basics of well-log correlation and the use of synthetic seismograms in identifying reflectors are taught. Use of the Kingdom Suite interpretation software forms the basis of an introductory lab in mapping, posting, and picking horizons from a reservoir example, which is the emphasis in this course.