A method for hydrocarbon exploration based on imaging tunnel valleys is disclosed. The method includes obtaining a 3D seismic volume data corresponding to a target formation having at least one tunnel valley, interpreting a key horizon at or above the target formation as preparation for paleo-depositional environment restoration, flattening and decimating the 3D seismic volume data using the key horizon for paleo-depositional environment restoration to obtain a conditioned 3D seismic volume data, analyzing the conditioned 3D seismic volume data for frequency content and decomposing the conditioned 3D seismic volume data into at least three attributes, blending the at least three attributes to form a single seismic volume data to illuminate key features, and displaying, on a map, a distribution of the tunnel valleys in the 3D seismic volume data of the target formation.

Disclosed is an acoustic sensor system comprising an electrical connector, at least one transducer connected to the electrical connector, a fluid compensating piston connected to the electrical connector, a housing having the electrical connector, the at least one transducer, and the fluid compensating piston arranged in a linear arrangement, and a collar having the housing mounted along an interior surface of the collar.

A system includes a ground based area, an electromagnetic (EM) interrogation device having an EM emitter that directs an EM beam at the ground based area. The EM interrogation device includes a detector array that receives reflected EM radiation from the EM beam, and a controller having a ground movement description module that determines a movement profile of the ground based area in response to the reflected EM radiation.

Reducing casing wave effects on sonic logging data by positioning two or more receivers in a borehole in a subsurface formation; receiving, at two or more receivers in a borehole in a subsurface formation, a first signal associated with a first acoustic signal originating from a first transmitter position; receiving, at the two or more receivers, a second signal associated with a second acoustic signal originating from a second transmitter position; creating a dataset based on the first signal and the second signal; identifying casing wave signals in the dataset based at least in part on the second signal; calculating inverse-phase casing wave signals based at least in part on the casing wave signals and the second signal; and reducing effects of the casing wave signals on the dataset using the inverse-phase casing wave signals.

A method for determining a shear slowness of a subterranean formation includes receiving waveforms data acquired by receivers in an acoustic measurement tool in response to energy emitted by at least one dipole source. The waveforms are processed to extract a formation flexural acoustic mode and a tool flexural acoustic mode. The processing includes transforming the time domain waveforms to frequency domain waveforms, processing the frequency domain waveforms with a Capon algorithm to compute a two-dimensional spectrum over a chosen range of group slowness and phase slowness values; and processing the two-dimensional spectrum to extract the multi-mode slowness dispersion. The method further includes selecting a plurality of slowness-frequency pairs from the formation flexural mode of the extracted multi-mode dispersion wherein each slowness-frequency pair comprises a slowness value at a corresponding frequency and processing the selected slowness frequency pairs to compute the shear slowness of the subterranean formation.

An apparatus and method of using drilling vibrations generated by the deformation of a rock formation in response to forces acting on the rock formation, where the forces are related to a drill bit and/or drilling fluid system, to identify the nature and occurrence of fractures, fracture swarms and other mechanical discontinuities (boundaries) such as bedding planes and/or faults that offset or otherwise separate rock formations with different mechanical rock properties.

A system and method for acoustically profiling a wellbore while drilling, and which identifies depths in the wellbore where the wellbore diameter is enlarged or has highly fractured sidewalls. These depths are identified based on monitoring either travel time or signal strength of acoustic signals that propagate axially in the wellbore. Correlating wellbore depth to travel time of a signal traveling downhole inside of a drill string and uphole outside of the drill string yields an average signal velocity in the wellbore. Depths having a lower average signal velocity indicate where the wellbore diameter is enlarged or has highly fractured sidewalls. These depths are also identified by generating separate acoustic signals inside and outside of the drill string, comparing signal strengths of signals reflected from the wellbore bottom, and identifying the depths based on where there is an offset in the strengths of the reflected signals.

System and method for guiding a drill using a subsurface model generated by successive full waveform inversions (FWI) on surface data and seismic-while-drilling (SWD) data. A server receives surface data from at least one surface sensor that records elastic energy radiated from surface seismic source and SWD data from at least one surface or at least one subsurface crosswell sensor (i.e., deployed in a nearby well). The server also receives top-drive measurements. A drillbit source signature estimation is performed, on the SWD data, by the server by blind deconvolution or by using drill string modeling and top-drive measurements. The server then performs FWI on the surface data by using the background subsurface velocity obtained by kinematic analysis of surface seismic data, to obtain an updated approximation of the subsurface velocity. The new approximation along with the drillbit source signature is then used when performing FWI on the SWD data.

An acoustic while drilling receiving transducer array adopts a full-digital structure and a non-oil-filled rubber encapsulation arrangement mode, and the full-digital device of the acoustic while drilling receiving transducer array includes first modules, configured to carry out acoustic-to-electric conversion on weakly received acoustic signals of strata; second modules, configured to carry out amplification, filtering, gain control and digital-to-analog conversion on the weakly received acoustic signals; and a third module, configured to control interfaces of the device and convert external input and output signals.

Apparatus, methods, and systems for determining body wave slowness values for a target formation zone. A method includes selecting a target axial resolution based on the size of a receiver array, obtaining a plurality of waveform data sets corresponding to a target formation zone and each acquired at a different shot position, reconstructing the plurality of waveform data sets to generate a plurality of subarray data sets corresponding to the target formation zone, determining a slowness value for each subarray data set and determining a slowness versus offset value for each subarray data set. The method may also include generating a borehole model having at least one alteration formation zone and a virgin formation zone and generating a slowness versus offset model based at least in part on the borehole model. The method may also include determining a radial depth of the alteration formation zone.