Scope

This book is related to surface petroleum seismology, meaning those acquisition techniques involving sources and receivers at the earth surface. This represents the vast majority of seismic effort worldwide and includes data gathered by receivers on the seafloor. Downhole methods such as vertical seismic profiling and crosswell seismic are only discussed as they relate to surface seismic data.

A brief history of seismology

Earthquakes have affected human societies from the earliest times. The occurrence of earthquakes were recorded by civilizations around the world, including China, Egypt, Babylonia and other societies of the ancient near east, and Greece. The first attempts at explaining the causes of earthquakes are found in the fragmentary literature of the Greek pre-Socratic philosophers ^[114] from 580 BCE onward.

Little of value on this subject was added after the third century BCE. Earthquake theories of the ancient world are diverse but nowhere show an appreciation of faulting and wave motion as the cause of earthquakes. Perhaps the closest is Metrodorus of Chios (fourth century): "When someone sings into a large jar, his voice vibrates and runs through the whole jar " But only by abuse of a modern vantage point does an elastic wave theory of earthquakes emerge out of this passage or any of the ancient works.

The great earthquake of Lisbon in 1755 began a modern march toward seismic understanding that continues today. A major cultural center of Europe was destroyed, and many thousands were killed from the earthquake, tsunami, and aftershocks. Include the...