Best Prospect 2013

Just wrapped up my 3D Seismic Exploration class on Monday.  First time at University of Arkansas such a class has been offered.  We had 19 in the class (including 4 undergrads!).  Over two days, each student gives a presentation of his/her prospect in the Vermillion area of the Gulf of Mexico (data courtesy FairfieldNodal).  The class votes for daily winners, then an overall best prospect winner.

This year's best prospect went to graduate student Greg Buratowski with runner-up being undergraduate Josh Stokes.  Congratulations!

Josh Stokes (L) and Greg Buratowski (R).

A copy of the book Krakatoa was given as the Best Prospect Award.

The Mighty Miss

**** update 4/16/2013 ****

Have added Illinois, Alabama and Canada.  The latter thanks to Howard:

If you're not restricting yourself to south of the 49th parallel, here is an isopach map of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB): http://www.ags.gov.ab.ca/graphics/atlas/fg14_32.jpg
It's a total Carboniferous isopach (includes "Pennsylvanian" equivalents), but there isn't a whole lot of that in the WCSB--some in the northern end and smaller strips in the southern Rockies, so you could mostly use this as a proxy for "Mississippian".--Howard

Priority list (any help is greatly appreciated):

1. Missouri

2. Oklahoma

3. Texas

4. Nebraska

5. Kansas (Miss only, see note in original post)

6. Arkansas (unlikely this exists, so we plan to make one)

I like the Illinois map that shows an outcrop area, then isopach contours when it goes into the subsurface. So far, the thickest Mississippian section is about 12800 ft (3900 m) near Boise, Idaho.

State of the Mighty Miss project 4/16/2013. MArkUP study area in blue.

The 1979 USGS paper containing most of the maps is available in two parts: A-L M-DD


**** original post *****
Reading a classic USGS report I found several state contour maps showing thickness of the entire Mississippian section (Miss isopachs).  Since MArkUP is all about the Miss, I stitched the maps together in Google Earth for the big picture of Miss thickness.

The maps were rather ancient, but carefully compiled by excellent geologists.  Things did not quite match up at state boundaries and some were in feet with others metric, no matter.  Funny thing though, the states where I expected to get easy data are blank.

Miss isopach contour maps for some states, others needed. MArkUP study area in blue.

One would think it easy to find a Missouri map, where Miss outcrops aboud.  But the internet is silent for this.  Ditto for the other blank states, including my state of Arkansas.

If you can find a decent Miss isopach contour map in any graphics format, send me the file or a link.  I'll note contributors on updates of this blog post.

Thanks in advance.

ps. The Kansas isopach map is from top Arbuckle to top Miss.  In some parts of the state, this is all Mississippian rocks.  But not in other places.  So a true Miss isopach for Kansas would also be welcome.

MArkUP at AAPG Midcon

***** Update 4/15/2013 *****

All abstracts have been accepted for presentation. Congrats to all involved students and faculty.

***** original post ******

As we start to make some progress with MArkUP, it is important to present work at technical meetings.  The first opportunity is the AAPG Mid-Continent Section meeting in Wichita this October.  The abstract deadline was last week, and my group submitted seven abstracts.  Acceptance is another matter, but here is a list of the abstracts as submitted (click to see full content):

Mississippian Characterization Research in NW Arkansas (C. Liner, D. Zachry, and W. Manger)

Mapping Mississippian Tripolite Pods from 3D Seismic Data in Osage County, OK (R. Benson and C. Liner)

Google Earth Workflow and Mississippian Outcrop Inventory in the West-Central Ozark Plateau,
Arkansas (J. Gist and C. Liner)

Correlation of Mechanical Stratigraphy in the Mississippian (C. Jennings and C. Liner)

3D Seismic Mapping of Deep Basement Features in Osage County, OK (K. Liner and C. Liner)

Indexing and Characterization of Mississippian Outcrops in Northwest Arkansas, Southwest
Missouri, and Northeastern Oklahoma (T. Liner and C. Liner)

Depositional History and Stratigraphy of the Navarro Formation in the Minerva-Rockdale Oil Field,
Milam County, TX (A. Martin and C. Liner)

Status of the rapidly expanding MArkUP Mississippian Google Earth database. The MArkUP technical proposal can be downloaded here, or from the lead item in the top-level Links list.

DISC book errata and key references

updated 1 April 2013... new items marked with •

***** DISC Book Errata *****************

p xi ... SeismicUn*x is open source software not public domain software

p 37... Figure 1(c) legend is mis-labled for phase and group velocity.  Light gray is group velocity, dark gray is phase velocity.

p 38... Chap 3 Eq 21 see correction below in red

p 38... Chap 3 Eq 22 see correction below in red

•p 42... left side of Eq 23 should be zero not R

p 55... Chap 4 Eq 9 is an  invertible set of relationships between stiffness and Thomsen parameters, but the quadratic terms in the definition of delta require a choice of sign.  For details see Tsvankin's 2012 book Seismic Signatures and Analysis of Reflection Data in Anisotropic Media (p 19).

•p 73... para 2 reference should be Nagaoka (1906) as correctly given in the reference list

p 75... Table 2 wave equation (WE) entries for Time--dependent moduli should read "Linear"

p 80... Figure 2 vertical axis label should read: "1000/Q or Log(velocity)"

p 83... Figure 3 vertical axis label should read: "1000/Q or Log(velocity)"

p 121... Figure 12c velocity profile should decrease with depth as shown below:

*****  Key References ***************** updated 10 June 2012

At several early DISC events I was asked to make my key references available on the web.  DISC attendees, you have been heard....

Chapter 1

Chakraborty, A. and Okaya, D., 1995, Frequency-time decomposition of seismic data using wavelet-based methods: Geophysics, Soc. of Expl. Geophys., 60, 1906-1916. PDF

Torrence, C. and Compo, G., 1998. A practical guide to wavelet analysis. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 79, no. 1, 61-78. PDF

Bernhard G. Bodmann and Christopher L. Liner, "Stable signal recovery from the roots of the short-time Fourier transform", Proc. SPIE 8138, 813817 (2011); http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.894941
 PDF  Slides

Chapter 2

Doty and Crawford, 1954, First Vibroseis patent. PDF

Chapter 3

Park, C. B., Miller R. D., and Xia J., 1998, Imaging of dispersion curves of surface waves on multi-channel record: SEG, Expanded Abstracts, 17 , no. 1, 1377-1380 PDF (this is the Geophysics paper of 1999)

Chapter 4

Backus, G., 1962, Long-wave elastic anisotropy produced by horizontal layering: J. Geophys. Res., 67, 4427–4440. PDF

Liner, C. L., and Fei, T. W., 2006, Layer-induced seismic anisotropy from fullwave sonic logs: Theory, application, and validation:Geophysics 71, D183-D190. PDF

 Liner, C. L., and T. W. Fei, 2007, The Backus number: The Leading Edge, 26, 420-426. PDF

Chapter 5

Liu, H.-P., Anderson, D. L., and Kanamori, H., 1976, Velocity dispersion due to anelasticity; implications for seismology and mantle composition, Geophys. J. R. astr. Soc., 47, 41-58. PDF

An earlier occurrence of the standard linear solid (SLS) form of Hooke's law is found in C. W. Horton, A loss mechanism for the Pierre Shale, 1959, Geophysics 24, 667.  This paper is not referenced by Liu, et al. (1976).

First occurrence of theSLS is in Clarence Zener Elasticity and anelasticity of metals, University of Chicago Press, 1948.  This is not referenced by Horton (1959) or Liu et al. (1976).

Kjartansson, E., 1979, Constant QWave propagation and attenuation : Journal of Geophysical Research B, 84, 4737-4748. PDF

Also, Kjartansson's PhD thesis can be found online at the Stanford Exploration Project. PDF

Chapter 6

O’Doherty, R. F. and Anstey, N. A., 1971, Reflections on amplitudes: Geophys. Prosp., Eur. Assn. Geosci. Eng., 19, 430-458. PDF  [Thank you to Alessandro Amato del Monte]

Chapter 7

Biot, M. A., 1956a, Theory of propagation of elastic waves in a fluid-saturated porous solid, I: Low frequency range, J. Acoust. Soc. Am, 28, 168-178. PDF

Dutta, N. C., and H. Ode, 1983, Seismic reflections from a gas-water contact: Geophysics, 48, 148-162. PDF