Seismic imaging at sea: airguns generate intense
sound pulses, and microphones located in the streamer record the echoes.
This page is a stub. Must add much more info.
To find hydrocarbon reserves buried in the earth, geophysicists need to image the layers and structures lying beneath. Seismologists generate strong sound pulses (for instance with explosives or with pulses of compressed air), and then microphones record the echoes of the sound waves reflecting on the structures within the earth.
Founded in 1992 by Prof. Symes, this project seeks to apply the best of mathematical and computational technology to address the needs of the seismic data processing industry. Petroleum and service companies support the project financially and by sharing ideas and data with project members. Several of the innovations introduced by TRIP are now in widespread use in the industry. Students in the project use the problems posed by seismic data processing as case studies in applied and computational mathematics; solving these problems often involves a wide variety of subjects, such as mathematical analysis, numerical analysis, high performance computation, and continuum mechanics. Besides collaborating with oil industry scientists, TRIP students and faculty work with academics with similar interests in the Earth Sciences Department at Rice University, the Stanford Exploration Project, and the Center for Wave Phenomena (Colorado School of Mines), amongst others.