Greetings to CREWES sup-porters and friends around the world. This past year has been one of unprecedented change for CREWES but we are confi-dently looking forward to a bright future. As you are likely aware, founding Director Rob Stewart accepted the Cullen Chair at the University of Houston, which necessitated stepping down as Director. Rob remains associated with the project as an Associate Director and we welcome his continued collaboration. In another departure, long-time administrative manager, Louise Forgues, retired at the end of 2008 and was replaced by Laura Baird. Louise gave us many years of service and we wish her well. Laura is already mastering her job and reinvigo-rating this newsletter.

Yet another change has been

the recent economic decline and associated drop in hydro-carbon prices. Hopefully, this will be short-lived and we will soon see a return to more healthy times.

While these matters transpired, CREWES has remained fo-cused on our research agenda while also mentoring our tal-ented cadre of students. We presented our work recently at the 2008 Sponsor’s Meeting which many of you attended. We had a wide and exciting variety of research ranging from acquisition through in-terpretation, including a great deal of processing, imaging, and inversion. The feedback we received from attendees was very valuable and gives us es-sential guidance for the coming year. For those who could not attend the meeting, we hope you will take advantage of the

written reports and video presentations on our website.

At present, we are preparing for an active summer of field ex-perimentation, algorithm devel-opment, and data analysis. Recently we shot a 3C-2D line at the University’s test site near Priddis, Alberta, (a 40 minute drive southwest of campus) which is described elsewhere in this issue. As was described at the Sponsor’s Meeting, we are actively working to establish a test site for CO2 injection and monitoring at Priddis and this line helps us evaluate the likely data quality.

We hope you will enjoy read-ing this newsletter and encour-age you to make plans to attend our next Sponsors meeting which will be held November 18—20, 2009 in Canmore, Alberta.

Gary Margrave CREWES Director

CREWESing Ahead

Volume 20, Issue 1

May 2009

Meet the new CREWES students

2-4

Recent Conference Presentations

5

2008 Sponsor’s Meeting Feedback

6

Priddis Field Work 7-8

Lists of Sponsors and CREWES personnel

9

Inside this issue:

Did you know... Video recorded presentations from the 20th Annual Spon-sor’s meeting can be viewed on our website at: www.crewes.org/ForOurSponsors/SlideShows/

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www.crewes.org

Left: CREWES Directors 2008: From left to right: Back row - Don Lawton, Rob Ferguson, Larry Lines Front Row - Dave Eaton, Gary Margrave, Rob Stewart

CREWES News Page 2

Joaquin Aristimuno Ph.D. Student

(Supervisors: Rob Ferguson/John Bancroft)

Joaquin is from Caracas, Venezuela. He obtained Masters degree in Geophysics from Uni-versidad Simon Bolivar (USB) in Venezuela. He has worked for the National Oil Company in Venezuela (PDVSA), Schlumberger Mexico and Shell Canada. Currently Joaquin is working full time in the acquisition team of Imperial Oil –Esso. Among his research interests are seismic processing, interpretation and seismic inversion.

Meet the New CREWES Students

Farshid Forouhideh M.Sc. Student

(Supervisor: Dave Eaton)

Farshid received his first B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Azad University, Central Tehran Campus, Iran. After discovering geophysics, he obtained his second B.Sc. degree in geo-physics from University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. He followed Dave Eaton to the University of Calgary and started his Master’s in geophysics in September 2008. His

research is focused on passive seismic monitoring of micro-earthquakes induced by fluid injection e.g. in hy-draulic fracturing, or in geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide. In particular, he will perform moment tensor analysis on microseismic data to delineate the slip mechanism, stress field and migration/leakage pattern in the reservoir.

Recent Theses:

Aitken, Julie (M.Sc.) Exploring Maya Ruins in Belize, Central America using Ground Penetrating Radar Alcudia Leon, Alejandro (M.Sc.) Near-surface Characterization using Seismic Refraction and Surface-wave Methods Allen, Matthew (M.Sc.) Exploring a Maya pyramid ruin using seismic and radar tomography Hons, Michael (M.Sc.) Seismic sensing: Compairing geophones and accelerometers using lab and field data Lynch, Steve (Ph.D.) More than meets the eye - A study in seismic visualization Full copies of student theses can be found at our website: www.crewes.org Faranak Mahmoudian

Ph.D. Student (Supervisor: Gary Margrave)

Faranak Mahmoudian received a B.Sc. (2000) in Applied Physics from the Khage Nas-sir Toosi University and pursued a M.Sc. in Geophysics in the Tehran University. She obtained a M.Sc. in Geophysics with the CREWES Project at the University of Calgary in 2006. Faranak worked for Shell Canada as a seismic processor from 2006 until she returned the University of Calgary in January 2009 to start work on her PhD. Faranak’s

research interests include seismic imaging and AVO analysis.

Akshay Gulati M.Sc. Student

(Supervisor: Rob Ferguson)

Akshay received his Bachelor in Civil engineering from Nagpur university, India in 2006. He has worked with Risk Management solution India and the Department of Earth Sci-ence at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai Akshay is the author of two international papers based on finite difference and soft com-puting and has also contributed a chapter entitled “Application of Soft Computing for Landslide and its Parametric Analysis” in a book published by Nova Publishers ,USA . Akshay’s research include high performance computing, seismic modelling and seismic imaging.

Did you know that since its inception, CREWES has produced 78 Masters and 23 Phd graduates?

Page 3

Vanja Milicevic M.Sc. Student

(Supervisor: Rob Ferguson)

Vanja received her Bachelors degree in Applied and Pure Mathematics from the Univer-sity of Calgary in 2007. The initial application of her studies was in financial markets. After a year of employment, Vanja decoded to returned to the University of Calgary for her Master’s degree. Her research interests include reservoir simulation, subsurface mod-eling and fluid flow analysis.

Meet the New CREWES Students

Ghada Sindi Ph.D. Student

(Supervisor: Gary Margrave/John Bancroft)

Ghada Sindi is from Saudi Arabia and her studies are fully funded by Saudi Aramco. She obtained a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Mathematics from King Abdul Aziz University in 1997, and a Master’s degree in Mathematics from King Abdul Aziz Uni-versity in 2000. She worked as a geophysicist in the department of Exploration and Pe-troleum Engineering Technology in ARAMCO SA before coming to Calgary. Her re-search interests include mathematical geophysics and wave propagation

Baolin Qiao Ph.D. Student

(Supervisor: John Bancroft)

Baolin earned a bachelor’s (1992) and master’s (1999) degree in Geology and Ore Surveying at the Northeastern University, China. He worked as a Geophysical technician / Geological engineer in China Geological Survey Center, Shenyang from 1992 to. 1996, He was an assistant professor in Shenyang Institute of Aeronautical Engineering teaching

computer science from 1999 to 2005. His research interests focus on seismic imaging, seismic interpretation and multi-component seismology.

Ritesh Kumar Sharma M.Sc. Student

(Supervisor: Rob Ferguson)

Ritesh is from a small village in India. He received his bachelor’s degree from Choud-hary Charan Singh University Meerut, India in 2004 and his Master’s in applied geophys-ics from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee(I.I.T.R)India in 2007. He worked with the Vedanta group before coming to Calgary. Ritesh hopes to receive both a masters and Phd in Calgary. His research interests include seismic imaging and inversion.

Recent Theses:

Ma, Yongwang (Ph.D.) Seismic depth migration using the Gabor imaging theories McCrank, Jason (M.Sc.) Seismic detection and characterization of a CO2 flood in Ardley Coals, Alberta, Canada Miong, Soo-Kyung (M.Sc.) Borehole Geophysical Methods for Near-Surface Characterization Suarez, Gabriela (M.Sc.) Full-wave seismic analysis: source comparisons, land streamer tests, and converted wave processing Quijada, Maria (M.Sc) Estimating the elastic properties of sandstone reservoirs using well logs and seismic inversion Full copies of student theses can be found at our website: www.crewes.org

Congratulations to Maria Quijada for being awarded the Best Student Geophysical Oral Presentation at the CSEG conference in Calgary in May 2008 for her paper entitled Petrophysical and Seismic Signature of a Heavy Oil Sand Reservoir: Manitou Lake, Saskatchewan. Maria Quijada* and Robert Stewart

Volume 20, Issue 1

CREWES News Page 4

Meet the New CREWES Students

Congratulations to Maria Quijada and Jason McCrank, winners of the Third SEG Challenge Bowl during SEG’s Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, USA. At the time of the competition, both Maria and Jason were M.Sc. students with the CREWES Project at the University of Calgary. They were one of 12 regional teams who won all expenses paid trips to Las Vegas and the right to compete in this challenge, having won the Western Canada Student Bowl at the CSEG in May 2008. This winning team split the $1000 USD cash prize.

Congratulations!.

Congratulations to SEG Student Bowl Winners

Abdolnaser Yousef Zadeh Ph.D. Student

(Supervisor: John Bancroft)

Abdolnaser Yousefzadeh obtained his B.Sc. from Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, in 1997 and his M.Sc. in Geophysics from Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, in 2001. In the next four years Naser primarily worked for the NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company). Naser started his Ph.D. program with CREWES in September 2008, after receiving his M.Sc. in geophysics at the University of Alberta. His research interests seismic data process-ing and imaging problems.

Marcus Wilson M.Sc. Student

(Supervisor: Rob Ferguson) Marcus obtained his Bachelors' in Pure and Applied Math at the University of Calgary in 2006. After a few years in the work force he decided to return to the University of Calgary to obtain his masters degree in order to pursue a career in the oil and gas industry. Marcus’ research interests include algebraic properties of seismic models, transform methods, and irregularly spaced seismic data.

Right: Students and staff work on laying geophones in snowy Priddis, March 2009

Page 5

Recent CREWES Conference Presentations SEG November 2008, Las Vegas

Microphone experiments and applications in exploration seismology. Alejandro D. Alcudia and Robert R. Stewart Numerical modeling of seismic acquisition footprint. Joanna K. Cooper, Gary F. Margrave, and Don C. Lawton Field data comparison: 3-C, 2D data acquisition with geophones and accelerometers. G. Hauer, Aram Systems; M. Hons, R. Stewart, D. Lawton, and M. Bertram Raypath interferometry: statics in difficult places. Dave Henley Characterizing the elastic properties and seismic signature of a heavy oil sand reservoir: Manitou Lake, Saskatchewan. Maria F. Quijada and Robert R. Stewart Well log and synthetic seismogram analysis of an oilfield in Assam, India: A 3-C seismic development feasibility study. Robert R. Stew-art, Maria F. Quijada, K. L. Mandal and Romen Borgohain A field comparison of 3C land streamer versus planted geophone data. Gabriela M. Suarez and Robert R. Stewart Phase-shift time-stepping for reverse-time migration. Ben D. Wards, Gary F. Margrave, and Michael P. Lamoureux

Seismic attenuation and well log analysis in a heavy-oil field. Zimin Zhang and Robert R. Stewart

CSEG May 2009, Calgary Comparing Post-Stack AVO inversion to Prestack Inversion for Esti-mating Rock Properties. Paul F. Anderson On Choosing Differential Operators. John C. Bancroft Color Correction for Gabor Deconvolution and Nonstationary Phase Rotation. Peng Cheng and Gary F. Margrave 3D Anisotropic Phase Shift Operators. Robert J. Ferguson* and Gary F. Margrave Modelling Near-Field Effects in VSP-based Q-estimation Part 1: Theoretical Developments. Arnim B. Haase* and Robert R. Stewart Modelling Near-Field Effects in VSP-based Q-estimation Part 2: Modelling Results. Arnim B. Haase and Robert R. Stewart Automatic Time Picking and Velocity Determination on Full Wave-form Sonic Logs. Lejia Han, Joe Wong, John C. Bancroft, and Robert R. Stewart Increasing Seismic Resolution by Decreasing Receiver Spacing. David C. Henley*, Kevin W. Hall, Malcolm Bertram, and Eric Gal-lant

Feasibility Testing of Time-Lapse Seismic Monitoring with Full Waveform Tomography. Chad Hogan, Ken Hedlin, Gary Margrave and Michael Lamoureux Geophone and MEMS Accelerometer Comparison at Spring Coulee, Alberta. Michael S. Hons and Robert R. Stewart Properties of Gabor Operators for Seismic Imaging. Michael P. Lamoureux and Gary F. Margrave Finite-Difference Elastic Modelling Below a Structured Free Sur-face. P.M. Manning Geostatistical Inversion of Seismic Data from Thinly Bedded Ardley Coals. Jason McCrank, Don Lawton and Cheran Mangat Integration of Well Logs and Seismic Data for Prediction of Elastic Properties in a Heavy Oil Sand Reservoir: Manitou Lake, Saskatche-wan. Maria F. Quijada and Robert R. Stewart Delineating Sand Channels using 3D-3C Seismic Data: Manitou Lake Heavy Oilfield, Saskatchewan. Roxana M. Varga* and Robert R. Stewart The Phase Shift Time Stepping Equation and the Marmousi Data Set. Ben D. Wards, Gary F. Margrave, and Michael P. Lamoureux The Modernized U of C Seismic Physical Modelling Facility. Joe Wong, Kevin W. Hall, Eric V. Gallant, Rolf Maier, Malcolm B. Ber-tram and Don C. Lawton Shallow VSP Survey Using a Small Vibrator Source. Joe Wong, Soo K. Miong, Robert R. Stewart, Eric V. Gallant and Kevin W. Hall Seismic Detection of Cracks in Carbonates Associated with Potash Mining. Zimin Zhang and Robert R. Stewart Rock Physics Models for the Seismic Velocity of Cracked Media. Zimin Zhang and Robert R. Stewart

SCP/SEG April 2009, Beijing Raypath interferometry: generalizing statics correction. David Henley

EAGE, June 2009, Rome

Optimized regularization and redatum by conjugate gradients. Robert Ferguson Sommerfeld integral based spherical wavefield computations beyond two layers and a three-layer AVO example . Arnim Haase

Volume 20, Issue 1

Full and current listings of all conference presentations can be found

on our website: www.crewes.org

CREWES News

The 20th Annual Sponsor’s meeting was held in Canmore, Alberta from November 19—21, 2008. There were 59 representatives from 25 sponsoring companies gathered with the faculty, staff and students of the CREWES project to hear presentations spotlighting the most re-cent research being done by CREWES. Recognition was given to Dr. Robert Stewart, acknowledging his 20 years of leadership as he relo-cates to the University of Houston and to retiring Administrative Manager, Louise Forgues, for her 16 years of service.

Wishing to reach all members of our sponsoring companies, presentations were video recorded and are available on the CREWES website. The 20th Annual Research report can also be accessed from our website.

20th Annual Sponsor’s Meeting Results

Page 6

Students, staff and sponsors at the 20th anniversary Sponsor’s meeting in Canmore, Alberta

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5

Non-seismic methodsWell-log analysis

Sensor testingComputing methods

Laboratory rock propertiesSurvey design

Fluid substitution modellingPhysical modelling

Vertical seismic profilingCoal-bed methane and shale gas

Field testsPassive seismic monitoring

Numerical modellingTime-lapse analysis

Wave propagationInterpretation and case studies

Attenuation analysisHeavy Oil

AVO analysisWavelets, deconvolution, noise reduction

ProcessingVelocity analysis and model building

ImagingInversion

Anisotropy analysisFracture analysis

Average Responses in 2008 Sponsor SurveySponsor Feedback - Research Topics Survey

Interest Level Least Most

Page 7

Priddis 9C VSP and 3C-2D Line, March 2009

Volume 20, Issue 1

An ambitious field work program was undertaken at the Priddis geophysical test site by CREWES in March of 2009. A zero-offset vertical seismic profile (VSP) was recorded with full-bandwith sweeps and band-limited sweeps in order to study frequency-dependent attenuation effects, and a high-resolution 3C-2D seismic line was acquired in order to provide another dataset for noise attenuation studies, and to help further characterize the area for future geophysical development.

9C VSP The VSP was acquired in our existing 140 m borehole using a single 3C clamping geophone manufactured by Geostuff, attached to a Geode re-cording system. The sources used were the University of Calgary’s En-virovibe (vertical source), and the University of Alberta’s Mini-vibe (inline and transverse sources) parked side-by-side, 10 m away from the borehole (Figure 1).

In order to test our 500 m Geostuff cable, it was used to acquire a VSP with the locking geophone at depths from 360-30 feet (110 - 9 m) at 30 foot (~9 m) depth steps. Figure 2 shows the vertical source (10-250 Hz linear sweep over 20 s) results for this survey.

FIG. 1. University of Calgary and University of Alberta vibes — ready for a VSP shot.

FIG. 2. University of Calgary vibe (P source) recorded by a 3C geophone in the bore-hole. Vertical component is on the left, and horizontal components are in the center and on the right. No component rotation has been applied.

As there appeared to be broken wires in the 500 m cable (based on intermittent electrical con-tacts), a 100 m cable was used for the second survey. This survey was run with the geophones at 95-90 m depth (5 m depth step), 90-70 (10 m depth step) and 70-10 m (20 m depth step). The depth step was increased in order to acquire data over a larger borehole interval given the time constraints.

A 10-250 Hz (vertical) and 14-250 Hz (inline and transverse) 20 s linear sweep was used for each depth level, as well as band-limited sweeps of: 10-25 (vertical), 14-25 (horizontal), 15-35, 25-50, 40-70, 60-105, 95-155 and 145-250 for the planned attenuation (Q) study.

Vertical, inline and transverse sources were re-corded for each depth level before raising the geophone to the next depth.

Priddis 9C VSP and 3C-2D Line, March 2009

Page 8 CREWES News

3C-2D A 768 m long ARAM Aries 3C-2D line was laid out across the south field at the Priddis test site at a bearing of 70 degrees (~dip line) (Figure 3). Receiver spacing was 4 m and source spacing was 2 m. Receivers were SM-24 geophone elements in a plastic nail-type case.

Snow depth varied from centimeters to half a meter. In order to easily plant the geophones in the ground, and to have the vibe plate on the ground, the source line was cleared by a Bobcat with a snow blower. The receiver line was de-ployed using two ATVs with chains pulling trailers over the snow. This was necessary due to warm temperatures during the days, which caused the source line to become very muddy., and increased the probability of damaging the field. Snow melt also puddled in the cleared line and froze overnight.

Geophone coupling was very good (some were under 15 cm of ice when we picked up the line). FIG. 3. View looking down the 3C-2D line to the southwest.

Some breakage during extraction was reported.

Acquisition was suspended for one day due to high winds and issues with the University of Calgary vibe’s hydraulics. The following day, flags were missing and geo-phone locations were drifted in making it difficult for the vibe operator to see receiver stations.

Figure 4 shows an offset-limited (excludes 0-120 m source-receiver offsets) migrated P-P section. Shallow reflections dip in the op-posite direction to topography.

Acknowledgements Gary Kuemper from CSRI, Len Tober and Lucas Duerksen from the University of Alberta, and CREWES students from the Uni-versity of Calgary: Joanna Cooper, Lauren Ostridge and Marcus Wil-son.

Submitted by Kevin Hall, Techni-cal Manager

FIG. 4. Preliminary offset-limited migrated P-P section, Southwest is left.

Page 9

We would like to acknowledge and thank our 2009 sponsors

BHP Billiton Petroleum ( Americas) Inc. BP p.l.c. CGGVeritas Chevron Corporation ConocoPhillips Devon Energy Corporation Ecopetrol S.A. (pending contract) EnCana Corporation

Eni S.p.A. Exxon Mobil Corporation Gaz de France Geophysical Exploration & Development Corporation (GEDCO) Husky Energy Inc. ION Geophysical Corporation Landmark Graphics Corporation Marathon Oil Corporation Nexen Inc. Oil Search (PNG) Limited

Penn West Energy Trust Petro-Canada Petrobras Saudi Aramco Seismic Micro-Technology, Inc Sensor Geophysical Ltd. Shell Canada Limited StatoilHydro ASA Talisman Energy Inc. WesternGeco

A list of our Sponsors

Active Graduate Students: Abdullah Al-Shuhail: shuhail Paul Anderson: pfanders Joaquin Aristimuno: jaristim Salman Bubshait: sbubshai Peng Cheng: chengp James Close: jmclose Joanna Cooper: jkcooper Hong (Jason) Feng: hfeng Farshid Forouhideh: fforouhi Saul Guevara: seguevar Akshay Gulati: agulati Hussain Hammad: hihammad Lejia Han: lehan Chad Hogan: cmhogan Zaiming Jiang: jianz Faranak Mahmoudian: fmahmoud Vanja Milicevic: vmilicev

Lauren Ostridge: ostridge Agnieszka Pawlak: aepawlak Baolin Qiao: bqiao Ritesh Kumar Sharma: rksharma Ghada Sindi: gasindi Taher Sodagar: tmysodag Ben Wards: bdwards Marcus Wilson: wilsonmr Abdolnaser Yousef Zadeh: ayousefz Zimin Zhang: zzhan

Contact Note: Readers wishing to contact staff and students should add the domain @ucalgary.ca to the usernames listed below Leadership: Dr. John Bancroft, Adjunct Faculty: bancroft Dr. Dave Eaton, Associate Director: eaton Dr. Robert Ferguson, Associate Director: ferguson Dr. Don Lawton, Associate Director: lawton Dr. Larry Lines. Associate Director: lrlines Dr. Gary Margrave, Director: margrave Dr. Robert Stewart, Associate Director: stewart Management and Professional Staff: Laura Baird: labaird Malcolm Bertram: bertram Kevin Hall: kwhall Research Staff: Kayla Bonham: bonham Dr. Pat Daley: pdaley Eric Gallant: egallant Dr. Arnim Haase: haaseab Dave Henley: dhenley Han-Xing Lu: hxlu Dr. Rolf Maier: maier Dr. Joe Wong: wongjoe Dr. Peter Manning: pmmannin

CREWES— who’s who?

Volume 20, Issue 1

Left: Graduate students (clockwise) Ben Wards, Joanna Cooper, Lauren Ostridge and Peng Cheng.

CREWES (The Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology) is a dynamic collabo-ration, of academic scientists, their industrial sup-porters and a large body of graduate students, con-ducting research in applied seismology. Research topics include acquisition, data processing, imaging, inversion, and interpretation. CREWES often re-cords its own data, preferably with 3C receivers. In-dustry sponsors include companies from Canada and around the world

Phone: 403-220-8863 Fax: 403-284-0074 E-mail: crewesinfo@crewes.org

CREWES Project Department of Geoscience 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4

We’re on the web: www.crewes.org

The CREWES Project Staff and Students, Fall 2008, University of Calgary

21st Annual Sponsor’s meeting will be held in Canmore, Alberta from November 18—20th, 2009. Check our website for details.

  a  News