Abstract

From the earliest days, oil finders have employed a variety of technologies to reduce the risk associated with the exploration for oil and gas. The development of technology can be divided into the main stream, such as seismic, data acquisition and processing, and those approaches which today may be regarded as exotic.

In attempting to either image the earth, or look for surface manifestations of the underlying structure, or indeed seek the presence of migrated hydrocarbons, a number of techniques have been employed. These are governed by the fundamental physical properties of the earth’s surface as well as the instruments which may be used to stimulate a response from the rocks or oil and gas seeps.

In discussing these technologies it is clear that the greatest growth is going to be not so much in the ways in which datasets such as gravity, magnetics, seep finder surveys, satellite imagery, etc. are gathered and processed, but more the way they may be viewed and manipulated utilising the latest software tools and indeed moving into the field of virtual reality. In today’s exploration environment for most basins, there is more information available than time to allow its assimilation. The challenge for the future may be to return to the earliest days of the oil finders quest and use the tools available to continue to leverage the greatest asset available, the human brain.