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Beyond the ‘more data, faster computers’ syndrome

Schlumberger Oilfield Technologies, Houston, Texas, U.S.

Corresponding author: cbeasley@houston.oilfield.slb.com

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

I had a strange sense of déjá vu when I received the invitation to participate in the TLE Forum on Future Computing. I knew that I had encountered this topic before, but was not quite sure when or where. To peak your interest, I will offer the following quotes and invite you to guess the author and date.

"To improve resolution in a significant way requires first that seismic data be taken at much more closely spaced points along the surface of the earth."

"It is the need for increased resolution that will evoke the completely new equipment, instruments, and interpretation systems that will appear between now and the year 2000."

"New field systems such as these are only the beginnings of a parade of ever-more-prolific data-gathering systems which will appear in the next decades."

Although these quotes sound startlingly contemporary, they date back to August 1977 (Petroleum 2000, a special edition of the Oil & Gas Journal). The author was Carl Savit, then senior VP of Technology for Western Geophysical. It is interesting and instructive to look back 25 years at the predictions made then for the future of seismic computing today before risking my own predictions for the future.

It is this quest for ever-increasing resolution that was driving the seismic industry then and continues to drive it today both in acquisition systems and in computing. However, the drivers of the seismic industry were somewhat different in 1977. For starters, 3D seismic was not commercial yet. The increased resolution Savit described was for 2D data. At the time, Western Geophysical was introducing the Kiloseis marine acquisition system. A 1000-channel system—imagine that! Savit's concern for the future of computing in seismic stems from the processing needs that arise from such a trace density. Figure 1 is . . . [Full Text of this Article]