ES375062A1 - Method of collecting seismic data of strata underlying bodies of water - Google Patents

Abstract

A method of collecting seismic data to help determine the configuration of three-dimensional strata, of a terrain formation located below a body of water, by means of a continuously mobile marine seismic exploration system that includes repetitive seismic spring means and a plurality of hydrophones arranged in an extended line, each of said hydrophones being connected to a separate recording channel, comprising the operations of: (a) moving, by recording canister means, said dispersion of hydrophones having a constant separation interval, between a plurality of hydrophones, equal to X, said dispersion being moved on a base heading at a speed V along a base course line coinciding with the movement of said dispersion; (b) moving, by means of a trigger boat, said seismic spring means, at a speed V' along a course that defines an angle α enclosed between a course line for said trigger boat means and said base line; (c) controlling said velocity courses of said registration boat means and said launch boat means, so that the central points between all possible pairs of spring point-hydrophone station located in cyclically repeated instantaneous positions during the movement of said record boat means and said shot boat means, along said base and oblique course lines, respectively, at a repetitive time interval E, form a two-dimensional grid of center points, including transversal sets of center points aligned along imaginary lines substantially perpendicular to the baseline; (d) firing said seismic spring means sequentially, at said repetitive time interval T, along an oblique firing segment of the course line of said firing boat means defined by said included angle with respect to said line basic, to initiate the displacement of seismic energy downwards, towards the seismic discontinuities within said terrain formation; (e) receive in said plurality of hydrophones, during the time interval between the firing of said seismic spring means, separate reflection signals, representative of the energy received in said hydrophones, as they are instantly positioned in a plurality of stations hydrophones along said baseline, so that a series of traces is created, said traces containing traversal sets of traces associated with said transverse sets of central points, at least one trace of each of said traversal sets of traces being, the product of a respective pair of hydrophone station and spring point, with a substantially different horizontal separation of at least one other pair of hydrophone station and spring point, from other traces associated with each of said transverse sets of traces. (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding)