BSRG Seismic Interpretation Workshop, Imperial College, London (14th-15th June, 2014)

This year a postgraduate seismic workshop was run by Dr Chris Jackson at Imperial College London. The aim of this weekend was to refresh our seismic stratigraphy skills and to introduce postgraduate students to Petrel software, the industry-standard seismic interpretation software. The workshop was attended by 20 postgraduate students from universities all over the UK, with a vast range of experiences with seismic data.

We were lucky enough to have a weekend of beautiful sunshine, perfect for sitting indoors. The workshop started on Saturday at midday with an introduction to fundamental seismic-stratigraphic principles, and a discussion of the link between geology and geophysics, including the limitations of seismic reflection data for imaging geology. We then undertook an exercise in using information from different well data to improve the accuracy of our interpretations.

Later, everyone had the chance to show off their colouring skills with some 2D seismic interpretation whilst we learnt some of the common pitfalls. Saturday evening started, surprisingly, with a trip to the pub. The drinking then continued through dinner, before we headed back to the hostel for the England-Italy match…with a few games of twister thrown in at half time for good measure.

Sunday morning commenced with a stroll from the hostel through Kensington Gardens, with some feeling a little worse for wear. On Sunday we focused on the interpretation of 2D and 3D seismic interpretation in Petrel. For many people who had not used Petrel software before, this was a great introduction and for those who were more experienced it was a good chance to learn more tips.

Thank you very much to Chris for running the workshop and to his PhD students who helped out over the weekend. Finally thank you to everyone who attended the workshop, hope to see you all again at the BSRG AGM.

Hannah Brooks (University of Leeds), BSRG Postgraduate Representative.