Sweating the Data!

As some of you know I have been offshore for the last 20 days collecting seismic data in the Gulf of Mexico. It is starting to feel like a lifetime! I was lucky to be invited as part of a scientific team led by Dr. Tip Meckel from the Bureau of Economic Geology and Dr. Nathan Bangs from the Institute of Geophysics to acquire some data using a relatively new seismic acquisition system (P-Cable). This has been my first experience offshore and it has proven to be both rewarding and challenging. The rewards come from the opportunity to learn about the whole process that involves offshore seismic acquisition operations. The challenges come from living conditions on a small and old boat.

Sun set from a vessel that should not be named somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico

As a seismic interpreter I saw acquisition operations from a distant fence. Those geophysists do their thing and I get the processed data. Not a big deal. Many years ago I went to an onshore seismic acquisition project in eastern Venezuela as part of a training program. That previous experience looks now a bit distant and I was too young to fully appreciate the magnitude of what was happening around me. From now on I’ll be more appreciative of each seismic line I see because it’s taking us ~2.5 hours to acquire each of them on this cruise (if everything goes as plan). I am also starting to think that some geophysists are trained to become “masters of the universe” because they know everything! How I was supposed to know that the 60 Hz noise on the data was coming from the ship generators? Maybe a microwave? I also learned that grounding equipment is very important!

Geophysists working in acquisition projects seem to develop some sort of a special spiritual aura that allows them to stay cool on situations that can look to the rest of us as absolute chaos. Nathan: “Every problem has a solution” and sure enough the solution was found at some point. These guys are incredible sources of knowledge. Experience counts! They actually have a brilliant sense of humor, even though it takes a while to tune into their very nerdy jokes.

I hope we can soon share results from this adventure with the wider world. I would definitely repeat the experience (on a different boat!). For those of you interested on the system, I recommend you check out the P-Cable webpage. We have the equipment! Let me know if you want to invest in our next expedition.

Unrelated issue, I think you should all read this wonderful article. I deserve to be allowed to a bit of egocentric extravaganza after all these days out here!

Close to loose our minds sometimes but never our sense of humor. That would be the end us!