The Increasing Appeal of Single-Element Pneumatic Point Sources

The resistance of low-frequency seismic energy to scattering and absorption, and its resulting ability to be recorded over long ray paths through attenuating media is well established. This relative resistance to scattering and attenuation makes it vital for capturing information with depth and offset, both for model-building and illumination. There is likely to be no better example of this than modern long-offset OBN (ocean bottom node) surveys of the Gulf of Mexico – however the importance of high-quality low frequencies in unravelling imaging challenges below complex overburden such as shallow gas, carbonates, salt, and volcanics is well documented. Consequently, interest in recording low frequencies in the field extends beyond OBN surveys to include single-vessel and multi-vessel towed-streamer designs. We have seen strong focus on designing sources that produce rich low frequencies over the last decade as a result.