Reflection Seismology - Applications

Applications

Reflection seismology is used extensively in a number of fields and its applications can be categorised into three groups, each defined by their depth of investigation:

• Near-surface applications – an application that aims to understand geology at depths of up to approximately 1 km, typically used for engineering and environmental surveys, as well as coal and mineral exploration. A more recently developed application for seismic reflection is for geothermal energy surveys, although the depth of investigation can be up to 2 km deep in this case.

• Hydrocarbon exploration - used by the hydrocarbon industry to provide a high resolution map of acoustic impedance contrasts at depths of up to 10 km within the subsurface. This can be combined with seismic attribute analysis and other exploration geophysics tools and used to help geologists build a geological model of the area of interest.

• Crustal studies – investigation into the structure and origin of the Earth's crust, through to the Moho discontinuity and beyond, at depths of up to 100 km.

A method similar to reflection seismology which uses electromagnetic instead of elastic waves, and has a smaller depth of penetration, is known as Ground-penetrating radar or GPR.