AAPG Studies in Geology No. 48 / SEG Geophysical References
Series No. 11, Chapter 12: The Role of Satellite Seep Detection in Exploring
the South Atlantic's Ultradeep Water, by Alan Williams
and Geoff Lawrence, Pages 327 - 344
from:
AAPG Studies in Geology No. 48 /
SEG Geophysical References Series No. 11: Surface
Exploration Case Histories: Applications of Geochemistry, Magnetics, and Remote Sensing,
Edited by Dietmar Schumacher and Leonard A. LeSchack
Copyright © 2002 by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the
Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.
Chapter 12
The Role of Satellite Seep Detection in Exploring the South Atlantic's Ultradeep
Water
Alan Williams
NPA Group, Edenbridge, Kent, U.K.
Geoff Lawrence
TREICoL, Knebworth, Hertfordshire, U.K.
ABSTRACT
Satellite radar can now offer the oil industry an effective, low-cost technique for
reducing source risk in high-cost exploration environments such as the ultradeep frontier
basins of the South Atlantic margin. This is because of the ability to image surface oil
seeps that originate by slow leakage from oil- and gas-filled traps. Multitemporal
satellite data over such seeps provide the locations for follow-up surface sampling from
which key geochemical information on the reservoired oil can be obtained ahead of the
drill.
