Broadband technology; history and remaining challenges from an end-user perspective

Broadband marine seismic data is evolving as the new standard in petroleum geoscience. Much of the dialogue to date has been focused on the seismic acquisition systems and deghosting aspects of this technology. The first requirement of any broadband project should be to “do not harm.” This is especially true in the acquisition arena, since the penalty for deficient data is significant. A reasonable objective would be to demonstrate equal, or better, data quality than conventional “high-resolution” shallow-tow surveys, increased operational efficiency, and overall improved signal/noise compared to processing-only-based broadband solutions. It is probably not a reasonable expectation that a single acquisition system always will provide more value/cost benefit than alternative options. A simple metric for the effectiveness of any broadband technique is demonstration that better results can be achieved over more conventional processing flows. An understanding of data fidelity and signal attenuation (Q) is ess...