The Montana Overthrust area and adjacent Disturbed Belt are characterized by extremely complex geology and rugged topography. To date, several hundred miles of high quality seismic data have been acquired in this area. The first step in obtaining this data quality was to understand the physical characteristics of the rock properties for seismic signal and noise, then to apply this information in designing our data acquisition parameters.

At the commencement of each seismic specification program, a complete suite of experimental tests were run over carefully selected areas. These tests generally included noise and reflection analysis, geophone patterns, energy input patterns, offsets, expanding spreads, and specific problems (i.e., traffic, freezing, thawing). From these tests, appropriate field parameters were selected for various surface and subsurface geologic environments.

It is the scope of this paper to discuss the results of these tests and the subsequent fine tuning of both acquisition and processing parameters of this data.

End_of_Article - Last_Page 1351------------