Introducing a New DAS Test Facility for Evaluating Emerging DAS Technologies

Abstract

Summary The interest in utilizing fiber-optic cables in surface seismic and borehole acquisition designs has led us to establish a test facility in Houston to explore DAS latest developments and technologies. We show the latest results of acquiring zero-offset and offset vertical seismic profiling datasets in the shallow land well in Houston. The datasets are recorded to assess multiple interrogation boxes provided by different vendors. The datasets are also collected using different cable configurations such as cemented DAS cable behind casing, pumped cable inside control line, and a fiber on a spool. We also demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing either multi-mode or single-mode fiber-optic cables for recording VSP seismic data. Our objective is to provide the best mode procedure to acquire quality DAS data for different purposes such as checkshot retrieval, velocity analysis, and subsurface imaging.