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Advanced helicopter aerogravity surveying system

Carson Services, Perkasie, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Corresponding author: W. Gumert, bill.gumert@carsonservices.com

Editor's note: Several new systems have been recently developed for acquiring airborne gravity data and airborne gravity gradiometry data. Therefore, the Meter Reader is currently running a series of articles that feature all commercial systems now available to the exploration industry. This is the second article in this series.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

In recent years, the uses of gravity data have advanced from basic delineation of sedimentary basins and identification/modeling of large structures in frontier basins to integration with seismic data in the construction of detailed velocity-depth models in salt dome basins. The demand for more precise gravity data often in some of the most remote places on earth has driven the 35-year evolution of the Carson Aerogravity System.

This article discusses the most recent developments in that system. Before considering these in detail, it is worthwhile to look briefly at how this system has developed and what it has accomplished over the past 35 years.

Carson's first commerical aerogravity system was developed in the 1960s, a "spinoff" of U.S. Department of Defense programs. Carson flew its first commercial aerogravity survey in 1978 and more than 100 000 line km were flown prior to a "blind" test of the system in 1982 by a consortium of petroleum companies. General industry acceptance of the system increased rapidly after those carefully supervised trials. International patents on the system followed—the first issued in 1984 and the latest in 1997.

The first field surveys with GPS began in 1991. Continuous improvements in accelerometers, platform, and gravimeter throughout the 1990s culminated in the system discussed in this article. The four Carson systems deployed today have flown more than 100 commercial surveys for 66 clients totaling more than 1 000 000 line km. All have been directed by the same management and engineering team that developed . . . [Full Text of this Article]