Seismic recording techniques in oil prospecting

Seismic methods for the detection of underground geological structures have been widely used since their introduction some forty years ago and a large manufacturing and research effort has gone into their development by oil companies and seismic contractors as well as the electronics industry. Both reflection and refraction methods are practicable and details are given of the various sources of seismic energy, geophones, amplifiers, recorders and methods of presentation that are available. The design and operation of these are discussed in relation to the type of signal and the background seismic noise. Analogue systems are most widely used but in recent years digital recording and analysis has been introduced in attacking prospecting problems that are more easily solved numerically.