Mr. Greg A. Shore, (P.Geo., Premier Geophysics Inc., Aurora, Ontario) is going to make a presentation:

“New depths of insight from the 3D earth imagery delivered by 3D DC data acquisition systems:  field case examples from Nevada, New Zealand and British Columbia”

Date: Tuesday 14 May, 2013 @ 4:00PM
Venue: ESC 2093, Department of Earth Sciences, 22 Russell Street (2nd floor), University of Toronto

Abstract: The acquisition of a uniformly-distributed, all-directional, dense and deep-sensing (“true 3D”) DC geo-electric data set can provide the field observations needed to guide and constrain a 3D data inversion to a model earth result that is as objective and as subtly resolved as is practically possible.  Whether the field acquisition technology is distributed or tethered, it is the data set itself that counts, and all 3D systems today (E-SCAN, ORION, NEWDAS) deliver the optimized true 3D field data sets as characterized above.

Having providing the hard-data basis for an enhanced level of trust in subtle image patterns, the new 3D imagery can help to understand both the anomalous targeted features and the often-subtler alteration envelopes or settings that may accompany them.  These previously-unseen alteration patterns may themselves represent new resource targets.  They can also provide guidance as to the probable location of otherwise non-responsive targets of interest, resource zones that are perhaps too small in volume or too weak in response to be directly identifiable with any geophysical technology.

We show how 3D alteration pattern imaging indirectly locates the otherwise geophysically-invisible Gwenivere ore veins at Great Basin Gold’s Hollister mine, and how that signature leads to nearby targeting. Another Hishikari-like setting in New Zealand and an answer to narrow-vein mapping problems in the Toodoggone (BC) district illustrate the new opportunities to understand not just ore signatures, but the imprinted patterns of entire hydrothermal signatures on host lithology.

A short course on the why, how, and what of geophysical inversion

Presented by the B.C. Geophysical Society

This is a 2-day workshop consisting of 1 day of lectures (April 24th) followed by a 1 day hands-on workshop (either April 25th or 26th). Delegates can register for just the lectures or both the lectures and workshop.

Registration available until April 15th at: www.bcgsonline.org

Date: April 24th – 26th 2013

Address: SFU Downtown Campus; Vancouver BC

Registration: Registration is now open!  Please fill out attached pdf form (link below) and click submit.  Registration will be complete once payment is made via Paypal link.  Delegates are asked to choose one workshop day among April 25th or 26th.

Day 1 – Introduction to inversion
– Introduction to inversion in exploration

Reasons for doing inversion
Range of inversion options: magnetics, gravity, EM, IP-resistivity, seismic
Fitting geology and data

– Background on inversion

Unconstrained/constrained
Joint and collaborative
The future of inversion

– Before inversion – forward modeling

forward modeling
petrophysics drives the story
complexity vs. adequacy

– Case studies

Potential fields
EM
IP-resistivity

Day 2 – Workshop with Case studies
Multi-disciplinary teams will use geological, geophysical and geochemical data from two deposits (Babine Lake porphyry Cu-Mo, BC and Minto Cu, YK) to develop exploration targets. Teams will present their evaluations of the data to stimulate group discussion.

Inversion results for the available geophysical surveys will be presented to demonstrate state-of-the-art technology and best practices.
Sponsors for the short course are currently being solicited. Please contact Victoria Sterritt at Victoria.Sterritt@teck.com for details. Proceeds go to the KEGS Foundation.
For those interested in more information about the short course, please email info@bcgsonline.org

MicroSeismic, Inc. announced that Peter Duncan, Ph.D. will be honored for a lifetime achievement in geophysics at the Geophysical Society of Houston (GSH) and Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) 2013 Spring Symposium on March 5 and 6. As part of the symposium, Peter will host a Challenge Bowl on March 5 and will be the guest of honor at the March 6 banquet toasting and roasting him.

“I am extremely surprised and grateful to receive this prestigious honor and join a group of honorees for whom I have deep admiration,” stated Peter Duncan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of MicroSeismic. “I have dedicated my life to the study of geophysics and the advancement of that field of work; to be honored by these two organizations means the world to me.”

Peter is an active volunteer with many organizations including GSH and SEG. He chaired GSH’s Continuing Education Committee for two years and SEG’s Continuing Education Committee for three years. In the late 1990′s, he was responsible for creating the SEG Distinguished Instructor Short Course format. Peter served as the SEG President in 2003 and in the fall of 2008, he was the SEG/AAPG Distinguished Lecturer and spoke on the subject of passive seismic at 45 venues around the world. His most treasured accomplishment with SEG is the development of the successful Challenge Bowl where he continues to be its biggest promoter and host. Challenge Bowl events are held annually around the world, with local and regional eliminations leading to a world championship at the SEG Annual Meeting.

For registration and details of event visit http://www.gshtx.org/en/cev/932.

Pennsylvania Council of Professional Geologists announces Resistivity/IP/SP for Environmental and Engineering Applications Short Course on February 27, 2013 in Harrisburg, PA. The course instructor will be Brad Carr, Ph.D (formerly of AGI). This 1-day short course will cover DC Resistivity, IP, and SP topics such as: theory; data acquisition; field procedures; data processing; data presentation; and interpretation. The course will also provide attendees a better understanding of the strengths of 1D, 2D, 3D and 4D resistivity/IP imaging and SP monitoring methods through the discussion of various case histories, survey design, forward modeling and inversion and the use of data processing/analysis software as applied to surface, borehole, marine and time-lapse monitoring data.

Overview

Electrical Resistivity/IP/SP for Environmental and Engineering Applications is designed for professionals who are involved in, beginning to consider, or have oversight/review responsibilities of others currently conducting DC Resistivity, IP or SP surveys on engineering or geotechnical projects.

This 1-day short course will cover DC Resistivity, IP, and SP topics such as: theory; data acquisition; field procedures; data processing; data presentation; and interpretation. The course will also provide attendees a better understanding of the strengths of 1D, 2D, 3D and 4D resistivity/IP imaging and SP monitoring methods through the discussion of various case histories, survey design, forward modeling and inversion and the use of data processing/analysis software as applied to surface, borehole, marine and time-lapse monitoring data.

Details..

The Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (WA Branch) invites you to attend the upcoming ASEG WA Tech Night presented by Tim Dean of WesternGeco Geosolutions.

Land seismic is currently undergoing what, in a generally slowly evolving field, amounts to a revolution. This revolution involves the use of a variety of new technologies but is principally concerned with reduction. The introduction of high channel-count recording systems has enabled reliable point-receiver acquisition. Coupled with advanced data processing techniques this enables a reduction in the number of sensors required on the crew. This in turn results in reduction in the number of crew members and thus survey cost, including the environmental cost. Acquisition cost can also be reduced through the use of advanced source acquisition methodologies that reduce the source cycle time (the time taken between the acquisition of records). An increase in the size of vibrators has also allowed a reduction in the number of vibrators on the crew and their related logistic burden.

An area of particular interest currently is the recording of data with enhanced the low-frequency content of the data. Increased low-frequency content has a variety of benefits, it helps overcome the high-frequency attenuating effects of the earth, improves vertical resolution, enhances inversion results, and improves: velocity analysis, minimum phase deconvolution and wavelet estimation. Acquiring such data involves lowering both the minimum frequency transmitted by the source as well as the ability of the sensors to record such frequencies.

Read more..

Webcast viewing guide

Technical Luncheon Webcasts

January 23, 2012
Quantitative Interpretation, New Challenges, and Economic Value
Lee Hunt

February 29, 2012
Rifting in Africa: Seismological Views from Afar
Dr. Mike Kendall

April 23, 2012
Microseismic Imaging of Hydraulic Fractures: Snap, Crackle and Pops of Shale Reservoirs
Shawn Maxwell

Lunchbox Geophysics Webcasts

January 31, 2012
Texture Analysis of High Resolution Aeromagnetic Data to Delineate Geological Features in the Horn River Basin, NE British Columbia
Hassan H. Hassan, Fugro Gravity and Magnetic Services

______________________________________________________________

The 2012 Maxwell software training schedule and booking form is now available. Please see the PDF below.

Many hardware and software queries can be answered by EMIT staff over the phone. However, for more intensive personalised training, we can organise one-on-one training sessions either at your workplace or at our office in Midland. Alternatively, customised sessions for your acquisition or interpretation groups can be held at your organisation using your data.

EMIT Workshop Schedule and Booking Form 2012 (Maxwell and CSIRO) EMIT Workshop Agenda – Maxwell EMIT Workshop Agenda – CSIRO

Participants are encouraged to book four (4) weeks ahead to ensure their desired workshop dates. Each workshop will be confirmed only when the minimum of four (4) bookings have been received. Workshops are limited to ten (10) participants.

MATT HALL: ”This year is the 20th anniversary of the release of Seismic Un*x as free software. It is six years since the first open software workshop at EAGE. And it is one year since the PTTC open source geoscience workshop in Houston, where I first met Karl Schleicher, Joe Dellinger, and a host of other open source advocates and developers. The EAGE workshop on Friday looked back on all of this, surveyed the current landscape, and looked forward to an ever-increasing rate of invention and implementation of free and open geophysics software.

Rather than attempting any deep commentary, here’s a rundown of the entire day:..”

Read more

Geoscience Australia Record 2012/04 contains abstracts from the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysics (ASEG) Natural Fields EM Forum 2012, held at the recent ASEG 2012 Conference in Brisbane.

The report is a collation of abstracts presented at the forum and reviews the current state-of-the-art use of natural EM fields in exploration applications. It also includes details of significant developments in acquisition, processing and interpretation methods in recent years, many of which have been made possible through ready access to increased computing power, both in the field and in post-acquisition processing facilities.

Principally, these applications involved aspects of ground-based MT and AMT methods, but also included airborne techniques (e.g., ZTEM) which use only natural EM fields as an energy source. The abstracts cover a wide range of applications of natural EM fields which are used in the search for minerals and energy resources and range from the development of broad-scale regional models to direct detection of drill targets.

The record is available as a free download.

Houston, TX 23-26 January 2012

Seismic Data Acquisition
Seismic Data Processing
Seismic Data Interpretation
Potential Fields/Non-Seismic
Near-Surface Geophysics
Exploration & Production Geophysics

By Cheryl Pellerin, American Forces Press Service

The DOD Task Force for Business and Stability Operations is providing state-of-the-art equipment and, with USGS, training for geophysicists at the Afghanistan Geological Survey so the government eventually can use modern tools to conduct and oversee mineral exploration there.

“We’ve been working with the USGS on this program since September 2009,” Emily Scott, task force director of natural resource development, told American Forces Press Service.

“We just signed another interagency agreement to continue working with the USGS on geophysics capacity training for the next fiscal year,” she added. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, 2012.

After several months of mainly classroom training for five Afghan scientists at the USGS in Denver, Colo., Scott said, “this year we will focus on [getting the scientists] out in the field in Afghanistan and collecting ground geophysics data with the equipment we purchased.”

Geophysics is the study of Earth’s shape, gravitation, magnetism, internal structure, composition and other features.

For the purpose of mining, geophysicists can figure out what’s in the ground by measuring characteristics of the surface material and the subsurface rocks.

These include the chemical composition of the surface material and, for subsurface rocks, electrical conductivity, tiny variations in the earth’s magnetic and gravity fields, and how different rocks absorb light, called infrared spectral reflectance.

“Each rock has its own characteristic density,” Dr. Victor F. Labson, director of the USGS Crustal Geophysics and Geochemistry Science Center in Denver, told American Forces Press Service.

“By understanding the density distribution and understanding which rocks have what density — and we [know] that from a hundred years of laboratory measurements — we can then discern what sort of rocks are in the subsurface from the gravity variations.”

The same thing is true for magnetics, conductivity and light absorption, he added — each kind of rock responds differently to each measuring instrument.

These properties can be measured on the ground and, since 1943 when magnetic anomaly detectors were used on planes over the ocean to hunt for enemy submarines during World War II, from the air.

The Afghan geophysicists are being trained in ground geophysics but the real need is to enable them to work with companies that invest in exploring Afghan mineral deposits and bring in their own contractors to do the flights and data collection.

“There’s a huge commercial industry that supports airborne geophysics,” Labson said, “So we hope they’ll have the understanding and the ability to write [specifications for and to monitor] contracts, and then interpret the data resulting from airborne surveys.”

Duration: two days

This course is designed for geologists and geophysicists with interests in potential fields and regional tectonics. Presented as a two-day seminar, we concentrate on fundamentals for the first day and tackle advanced topics during the second day. Attendees with little previous experience in gravity and magnetics will find the pace comfortable and the concepts quite accessible. Attendees who have already worked with potential field data will find the first day to be a helpful review of basic concepts and the second day to be quite challenging and thought-provoking.

Course Outline

• Fundamentals of potential theory
• Application of the theory to geology of the Earth’s crust
• Acquisition techniques and parameters for gravity and magnetic surveys
• Conventional and innovative two-dimensional filtering techniques used to enhance potential field data
• Magnetic depth estimation techniques
• Gravity and magnetic gradiometry
• Airborne gravity methods

The course will include formal lectures, extensive presentation of case histories, computer-based modeling demonstrations and qualitative interpretation of mapped gravity and magnetic data. The students will have an opportunity to work with the computational software during the workshop period. The course is limited to 30 attendees in order to facilitate group discussion and interaction.

Instructor:

Michal Ruder

Michal Ruder received her A.B. cum laude from Bowdoin College with a joint major in geology and physics. She was awarded a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Pennsylvania State University. Her work experience spans government, academic, and industrial research and exploration laboratories. While at NASA, she analyzed satellite gravity and magnetic data from the Seasat and Magsat missions. Ruder’s academic experience includes investigation of conventional gravity and magnetic data as well as teaching, research, and application of image processing techniques and geographic information systems to gravity and magnetic data and satellite multispectral data. She worked for Exxon Production Research Company from 1986 to 1988 as a research geophysicist with emphasis on integration of seismic, gravity, magnetic, and electromagnetic techniques. Wintermoon Geotechnologies, Inc., founded by Ruder in 1996, performs integrated analysis of geophysical and GIS data for exploration purposes. Michal Ruder serves as president and chief geophysicist. Her professional affiliations include SEG, where she is a member of the Continuing Education Committee, AGU, ASPRS, and several local geoscience organizations.

Non-Uniqueness in Potential Field Inversion with application to the Potiguar Basin
Dr. Ash Johnson

October 10 – 13, 2011
China University of Geosciences, Beijing

Geosoft’s Dr. Ash Johnson has been invited to present his talk, The Non-Uniqueness in Potential Field Inversion with application to the Potiguar Basin during the GEM Beijing 2011 conference. Dr. Johnson’s presentation will focus on a basic unconstrained inversion of FTG and TMI data over Block 5 in the Potiguar Basin in north eastern Brazil and compare the results with known geology.

Geosoft is also pleased to sponsor the GEM Beijing 2011 International Workshop on Gravity, Electrical and Magentic Methods Dinner on Wednesday October 12th.

2011 SEG Fall Distinguished Lecturer (DL)
Imaging the Earth’s Near Surface:  The Why and How of Applied Geophysics for the 21st Century

Presented by Doug Oldenburg

This talk will look at the problems in which applied geophysics has made a major contribution and review the essential elements of the inverse problem needed to map survey data into 3D images of physical properties. Characterization of Earth materials generally requires knowledge of multiple physical properties, and this talk will show examples of this for mineral exploration and unexploded ordnance discrimination. The emphasis is on surveys sensitive to electrical conductivity. It is only recently that we have developed the capability to invert electromagnetic survey data in 3D and a plethora of applications now exists for mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, environmental and geotechnical problems. The talk concludes with a vision for the future and a discussion of the skill set required by a new generation of quantitative geophysicsts who want to tackle important practical problems so that we can live sustainably on this planet.

More information on the lecture and tour schedule are available online.

TerraSpark® Geosciences LLC has announced the launch of its first series of highly-anticipated seismic interpretation toolkits. The toolkits were unveiled on the first day of the SEG Annual Meeting in San Antonio. TerraSpark (Booth 3208) is featuring scheduled product demonstrations of each toolkit during the conference.

These toolkits are specifically designed to enable interpreters and explorationists to solve today’s most demanding and resource-intensive seismic interpretation problems. Each toolkit can be modified to accomplish any interpretation task, taking advantage of any or all capabilities of TerraSpark’s flagship software platform, Insight Earth®.

“For decades, seismic interpreters have struggled to find newer, better ways to engage the most pressing geophysical and geological interpretation problems,” notes TerraSpark CEO Geoffrey Dorn. “These toolkits represent a new trend in 3D seismic interpretation, one that lies with developing well targeted, specifically-designed interpretation platforms that address these uniquely difficult exploration challenges, with the end result being better interpretation outputs, more effective workflows, and superior business decision making.”

The toolkits include the following:
Shale Resource Play Toolkit™
Complex Structure Toolkit™
Salt Velocity Modeling Toolkit™

Shale Resource Play Toolkit
The Shale Resource Play Toolkit helps users locate areas of enhanced fracture density and optimize the well path for maximum production. By mapping micro-seismic data together with seismic and well data, the toolkit helps to identify facies-change boundaries and reduce drilling risk.

Complex Structure Toolkit
TerraSpark’s Complex Structure Toolkit helps users overcome inaccurate and incomplete fault interpretation, especially in complex, highly faulted regions. The toolkit helps to identify and accurately interpret complicated structural environments and ultimately avoid dry holes, missed opportunities and diminished revenue.

Salt Velocity Modeling Toolkit
The Salt Velocity Modeling Toolkit helps interpreters quickly create a closed three-dimensional (3D) geobody, even in the most poorly imaged areas. Users can also create a mask volume without having to export to a separate velocity modeling package, reducing interpretation and model building time.

The toolkits are powered by TerraSpark’s Insight Earth proprietary tools and technologies, including Domain Transformation™, Automated Fault Extraction™ and Surface Wrapping™. To learn more, visit www.terraspark.com/toolkits/.