Initially oil was found by chance, through seepage discovered at the surface above oil deposits. Later geologists began identifying potential reservoirs using their knowledge of local geological structures, sediment layers and surface formations.

As the oil industry grew, technology was developed to find potential oil traps – Reflection Seismology

In Reflection Seismology, geologists rely on the fact that seismic waves - much like sound waves - propagate at different speeds through different mediums, specifically the different types of rock layers in the earths crust. This leads to variations in the amount of energy which is reflected and absorbed.

In the field, an external source is used to artificially generate such waves. Sources range from explosions and air guns (shot-seismic) to continuous vibration-generating devices (vibro-seismic). Due to the varying physical properties of the rock layers a part of that energy is reflected back to the surface, where it is measured using specialized detectors (geophones).

The generated data is then analyzed using specialized software, resulting in a stratigraphical cross section detailing the different depths, shapes and thicknesses of certain layers, information which can be used to predict the occurrence of possible underground structures which point to the presence of so-called hydrocarbon traps.

Reflection seismology cannot determine if any hydrocarbons are actually present underground or which properties the possible hydrocarbon deposits have.

Without IPDS, geologists have to decide where to drill without knowing if there really is oil below the surface because classic seismic only identifies structures which point to possible oil deposits.

This is the main reason that the success rate for petroleum exploration across the whole industry is under 20%, as a large number of the structures identified using reflection seismic are either empty or contain minimal amounts.

Only GeoSpectra IPDS® can definitively identify if and how much Oil and/or Gas is actually present!