SEISMIC UNIX AND GNU OCTAVE FOR VSP DATA PROCESSING AND INTERPRETATION

Vertical seismic profiling (VSP) survey is a vital tool in subsurface imaging and reservoir characterization. In VSP survey, seismic waves are emitted using surface sources and recorded with the help of receivers clamped to the wall of the borehole. Geophysicists process the recorded data using a variety of processing tools. After processing, the data are then used to extract information that can help interpret surface seismic and infer reservoir properties. In this chapter, we introduce two free software packages used for VSP data processing. Seismic Unix and Octave are used to process raw VSP data. The processed data are compared with data obtained from commercial software. The comparison demonstrates that free software packages can be utilized to process VSP data and produce results with quality that is comparable to that produced using commercial software.