Low-Cost Option for Including S-Wave Reflection Data in Seismic Applications

Low-Cost Option for Including S-Wave
Reflection Data in Seismic Applications

Ohio Geological Society Webinar, January 19th, 2023

Bob Hardage
Hardage Consulting

Researchers have demonstrated that image quality S-mode data exist in most reflection data generated by common, land-based, P-wave, sources (either buried explosives or vertical vibrators) and then recorded with standard vertical geophones. Although a huge amount of this type of S-wave data has been acquired onshore, those data remain untouched and unused because geoscientists have simply not realized that S-mode data exist in seismic reflection data generated by common P sources and recorded with common vertical geophones.

This presentation will show examples of S-mode data extracted from P-source, vertical-geophone data, describe the physics that generated these data, explain why the presence of such valuable reflection data has been overlooked for decades, and illustrate important uses of these newly found S-mode data.

Bob Hardage Bio

Bob A. Hardage received a PhD degree in physics from Oklahoma State University. He worked at Phillips Petroleum for 23 years and advanced to the position of Exploration Manager of Asia and Latin America. His Phillips career was followed by 3 years as Vice-President of Geophysics and Marketing at WesternAtlas. He then established a multicomponent seismic research laboratory at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG), a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Senior Research Scientist. He did 27 years of academic research at BEG before retiring in 2018.