Performance of Different Seismic Sources for DAS VSP Acquisitions: a Case Study at Curtin Well Site

Summary Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology lately has undertaken significant developments and been recognised as a novel versatile approach for borehole seismic exploration. We conducted a series of acquisitions at the Curtin well site to evaluate the performance of several low power sources in conjunction with fibre optic cables as the receivers. We have tested the effectiveness of a small weight drop, a percussion rod and a parker using optical fibre cemented behind the casing as sensors. Results demonstrate that such inexpensive sources with minimal environmental impact are suitable for downhole seismic with DAS. This combination is highly applicable to the wide range of tasks in mining exploration, near-surface investigations and monitoring, cross-hole studies.