Innovations in Gravity Technology and Imaging capabilities
Advanced Airborne Gravity Sensors and Data Processing and Inversion Methods Drive Gravity Surveying into New Territory
Discovery of the Nash dome in Brazoria County, Texas by a torsion balance survey in 1924 marked the first use of gravity techniques for oil prospecting in the United States. The value of gravity data in advanced oil exploration workflows is well understood today, and refinement of processing techniques and innovative acquisition technologies continue to drive its application into new areas.
CGG Multi-Physics has a long heritage of development and application of gravity surveying technology, processing techniques and imaging software. During the GM2 and GM3 conference technical sessions they will showcase further advances in sensor design and deployment, advanced processing techniques, and present a greenfield prospecting example from a data-poor rift area in Tanzania.
These advances include further developments in broadband acquisition, a familiar term in seismic, but equally applicable to gravity. For gravity wavelengths shorter than 25 km, the precision of CGG’s Falcon® Airborne Gravity Gradiometer (AGG) sets the benchmark for airborne gravity measurements. However, as with all AGG acquisition systems, accuracy diminishes as wavelength increases, making it difficult to reconcile gravity derived by AGG systems with conventional ground or marine gravity data. To overcome this, CGG has developed a new gravity meter, sGrav, which provides the missing link between conventional gravity and AGG data and is being presented on their booth. This strap-down gravity system is a small, lightweight instrument that sits alongside the Falcon AGG system, providing highly accurate gravity data at wavelengths greater than 18 km. This data is acquired simultaneously with AGG data, under the same dynamic drape flight conditions, resulting in Full Spectrum Gravity data.