The latest tendency in development of exploration geophysics-Importance of spatiotemporal scales-

Abstract

Geophysical exploration technologies have been developed through several innovative steps in the history. Data acquisition and processing technologies evolved since 1960s. Since 1980s, these technologies started to be integrated fi rst to reservoir description, then to reservoir modeling characterization , and recently to reservoir management technologies. These developments have taken place due to the recent tendency to have their target structures in smaller scale or more complex than it used to be. We may summarize these technical developments as follows a 3D to 4D data acquisition to realize reservoir management, b 4-C marine data acquisition tri-component geophone and pressure gauge , c single sensor acquisition supported by well-developed multi-channel signal processing techniques for true amplitude recovery without any instrumental spatial fi ltering, d new acquisition technologies such as fi ber-optic sensor arrays. We believe that further new development would surely be attempted to satisfy the needs to visualize underground structure, to understand what is on-going for the state of natural resources under development, and to enhance our management capabilities to control the production from existing reservoir.