Events & Courses

Marine engineering projects involving some form of interaction with, or penetration of, the seabed, are dependent on input from geoscience practitioners, working with acquired geophysical, geotechnical and well data, in order to optimise engineering design parameters and minimise project risk.  Such projects vary in size and scale from location specific installations or investigations to windfarms covering many square miles of seabed, and the depth of interest may encompass any interval within the top 1000m sub-seabed.  The data used to interpret the geological and geotechnical characteristics of the shallow section vary immensely in how they are acquired, what information they are capable of recovering and the level of detail, or resolution, that they can achieve.  Marine geoscience data imaging the sub-surface come in two main types: seismic data and well, borehole and CPT ‘sample’ or ‘groundtruth’ data. 

There are fundamental differences between these two data families, rendering them at times difficult to reconcile or correlate but a thorough integration of both, i.e. a predictive geological model, is often the key outcome of a data interpretation project.  The key obstacles to full integration are fundamental differences in resolution, both lateral and vertical, between the two data types; and the difference between the vertical units in which the data are recorded; the time/depth conversion problem.  But whatever the scale of the project or whatever the depth of investigation, the workflows employed in order to interrogate, condition, interpret and ultimately integrate these disparate datasets, may operate across all depths of interest, all spectra of frequency content and all orders of resolution.  

This course will deliver practical guidance on assessment of the quality and characteristics of the full range of seismic data, how it may be conditioned to aid interpretation, how velocity models are employed in time-depth conversion, and how acoustic impedance provides a common language facilitating the full integration of seismic and groundtruth data.

Learning Objectives

1.  Assessment, conditioning and manipulation of seismic data

2.  Integration of seismic and groundtruth data through the medium of acoustic impedance

3.  Concept of the integrated geological model

Speaker

Francis Buckley B.Sc. FGS, CGeol Consultant Marine Geoscientist

Francis is a professionally qualified Chartered Geologist with 39 years’ experience as a Geoscientist in the offshore energy, engineering and telecommunications sectors.  Having graduated in geology from the University of Liverpool, and after a short spell mud-logging on North Sea exploration drilling rigs, he spent 20 years, both offshore and on, acquiring, interpreting and reporting on marine geoscientific data sources, for a full range of offshore engineering projects.  In 2008 he joined Senergy as its Principal Engineering Geoscientist, eventually becoming world-wide Technical Authority on engineering geoscience at Lloyds Register.

A specialist in marine engineering geoscientific data interpretation, he used site-survey and well data to advance radical ideas, since taken up by the academic community, on Early Pleistocene glacial episodes in the Central North Sea, and to question preconceptions on the later Pleistocene stratigraphy of the North Sea.  This work was published in a series of peer-reviewed papers, and posters and presentations to international conference audiences.  He also went on to develop advanced interpretation methods for site investigation purposes, borrowing techniques from exploration geoscience, including seismic attribute analysis, seismic inversion, AVO and petro-physical techniques incorporating well log, geotechnical borehole log and CPT data.  Key to this initiative were investigations into how velocity and density data extracted from seismic processing, geotechnical boreholes and CPTs may be combined with inverted seismic data to build quantitative geological models, some aspects of which have been published in international journals.  He currently lives on the Isle of Skye with his wife who is also a geologist.  He splits his time between employment with Marine Space/ERM, geoscience consultancy for Cuillin Geoscience Ltd., and collaborative efforts on a number of academic and non-commercial projects.

Programme

This will be a two part long half day course, including presentations, group exercises, question & answer sessions with speakers and tea breaks. The course will start at 09.30, and finish at 14.00.

1. Day 1
   1. Introductions and opening remarks
      1. Presenter bio
      2. Course purpose and structure
      3. Poll delegates for positions, experience, expectations etc.?
      4. Multiple choice technical questionnaire (to be repeated at course end to test learning outcomes)
   2. Course structure and over-view (Module 1)
      1. Presentation – 15mins
      2. Practical introduction to down-loaded software and data
      3. Q & A
   3. Break
   4. Phase and Polarity (Module 2)
      1. Presentation
      2. Practical exercise
      3. Q & A
   5. Velocity (Module 3)
      1. Presentation
      2. Practical exercise
      3. Q & A
2. Day 2
   1. Interpretation (Module 4)
      1. Presentation
      2. Practical exercise
      3. Q & A
   2. Seismic Attributes (Module 5)
      1. Presentation
      2. Practical exercise
      3. Q & A
   3. Break
   4. Seismic Inversion (Module 6)
      1. Presentation
      2. Practical exercise
      3. Q & A
   5. Model Building and Summary (Module 7)
      1. Presentation
      2. Repeat multiple choice technical questionnaire
      3. Q & A
   6. Closing remarks

Fees

If you are not a Member of the society, save money for this course and much more, by applying for Membership. Visit our Membership section for further details.

The society offers a limited number of concessionary rates for those in financial hardship. Contact [email protected] (please note you may be required to provide details/evidence to support your application for this).

Registration

If you require an invoice to register for this course, please email  [email protected]

Registration will close 24 hours before the event takes place.

We can offer bespoke discounts on group registrations of 5 or more. Please email [email protected] to enquire.

Venue

This event will be held virtually.

Delegates will receive joining instructions the day before it takes places.

Contact

Please email [email protected] with any enquiries.