M. Cvetkovic, Z. Zhou, & P.A. Farmer, ION Geophysical
Paper from EAGE 2011

WAZ acquisition has re-energized the sub-salt imaging business by greatly enhancing our ability to attenuate multiples and to illuminate sub-salt targets [Regone 2007]. A great amount of WAZ data have been acquired in the last few years in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), offshore West Africa, and elsewhere. The most commonly used geometry in these surveys builds a cross-line fold of 8 and inline fold of around 24, with cross-line offset ranging from -4200m to +4200m, and inline offset ranging from ~400m to ~7600m. Other geometries generally do not provide offset coverage much wider or longer than this setup, which we will refer to as the "baseline" WAZ for brevity.

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David Yingst, Chao Wang, Jaewoo Park, Robert Bloor, Jacques Leveille, and Paul Farmer,  ION Geophysical
Paper from EAGE 2011

Waveform inversion is a method for obtaining high-fidelity velocity models for seismic imaging by minimizing some cost function of the difference between experimental and modeled wavefield data. It was introduced by Lailly, Tarantola, andMora using a gradient-based algorithm (Lailly, 1983; Tarantola, 1984, 1987; Mora, 1986, 1988). Since then substantial research has been conducted in both the time and frequency domains (e.g. Sirgue and Pratt, 2004; Shin andMin, 2006; Vigh and Starr, 2006; Operto et al.,2007; Vigh and Starr, 2008).  Our time-domain implementation has been successfully applied to real 3D data sets.

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Edward Jenner, ION Geophysical
Presented at CSEG 2011

Unconventional reservoirs have become important hydrocarbon objectives for oil and gas companies. Although advances in drilling technology have been the primary factors in achieving economic viability in these tight reservoirs, 3D seismic data has played an increasingly important role in development success.
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Mike Saur and Mark Wallace, ION Geophysical
Article from January issue of E&P

It is widely acknowledged that the economic viability of shale plays has primarily been a result of advancements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies. These innovations have significantly changed the near-term natural gas supply picture, creating an overabundance of natural gas supplies in North America. The lingering effects of the recession and the surge in unconventional supply coming from accelerated drilling, driven by expiring leases, have led many government agencies and industry analysts to forecast a long-term low-price environment in North America.

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