Permanent full wave subsea seismic monitoring systems provides next generation of applications for oil and gas reservoir exploration, geotechnical engineering and security monitoring industries

Summary form only given. In recent years there has been much interest in permanently installed high-resolution full-wave ocean bottom or seafloor seismic recording. Utilizing a full-wave or four-component sensor that includes a hydrophone (measures pressure) sensor and a three-axis geophone sensor (measures velocity in three dimensions) provides the ability for continuous dynamic seismic monitoring on the sea floor. These new systems provide a new generation of applications including high resolution oil and gas reservoir characterization, seabed subsidence, microseismic and macro-earthquake monitoring and security monitoring for harbor infrastructures. All components of these new systems are designed and built for long-term reliability to with stand the rigors of deploying and operating in high pressure deep water environments. State-of-the-art distributed subsea digital electronics, high-speed fiber optic telemetry, full-wave sensors, high-strength armored subsea cabling, wet and dry mate-able connectors, high capacity real-time data recording are now commercially available in the industry. Most importantly, the subsea system needs to be custom designed to cost effectively fit the size and shape of the reservoir and accommodate for sea floor infrastructure such as communication cables, anchors, production pipelines, etc. One such system displayed presently being installed is to be used for high definition oil and gas reservoir characterization enabling the production engineer to dynamically monitor the oil and gas drainage in the reservoir continuously. The system consists of more than one hundred and twenty-five linear kilometers of contiguous armored sensor cables and over ten thousand channels of seismic data recording designed to operate in up to two thousand, five hundred meters of water.