When I started doodlebugging we had a 24-trace recorder and set patterns of 1/4# charges buried 3 ft underground. We were looking at reef formations about 3,000 - 4,000 ft. in MedMech's neigborhood. A string of 16 (I think) geophones were wired in parallel and one phone in series to balance the emf. The entire string of geophones would be laid and shot and then the line crew would pick up one trace and bring it forward up the line. On a good day we shot 2 miles. After processing the client would have a 2-d slice of the Earth's subsurface. When I left doodlebugging for good in 1983, GSI (the company that created Texas Instruments) was experimenting with 3-d seismic patterns using a 128 trace recorder. They were looking at a play around 18,000 ft.

Last week a seismologist came by (whom I didn't know) to talk about a prospect that would involve some input from where I work. During the course of discussion he indicated that he was shooting 3-d with THOUSANDS of traces. My jaw dropped at that and then he says he's recording down to a bit over 40,000 ft. That bowled me over and I frankly thought he was either lying (for some unknown reason) or pulling my leg. So I was pretty blunt.

He said, that they weren't looking to drill that deep but that his system was sufficient to get good records to that depth. He said he was getting about 80 ft resolution. He told me the actual depth that they were looking at and even that stopped me. I had no idea that technology had advanced so greatly as to drill so deeply. Also the surprising depth and accuracy of the seismic survey is freaking mind-boggling. So why run it out to 40,000? "Because we can and we don't want to have to re-shoot the prospect. Ever."

There are several former doodlebuggers around here and so I felt like this would be a great opportunity to make you feel old. I got out of the line of work because I thought seismic exploration was about done for. Wrong! Oh yeah, I also went broke!

I wonder if the result of the current high oil and gas prices will drive an exploration boom like the 1960's and 1970's. Couple that with the amazing seismic and drilling technology and we might end-up with another crude oil glut like from the 80's into the 90's. If so, that will happen in 5-10 years, IMO. But there's still the refinery bottleneck to hold prices high.

Make your play, podnuh.

B