Paper Summary
Advanced towing configurations which combine distributed multi-sources with dense multi-sensor streamer spreads have been frequently used for hydrocarbon exploration in recent years. These acquisition solutions enable accurate imaging from very shallow targets and geohazards to deep geological structures in a cost-effective manner. The improved near offset coverage and the dense spatial sampling provided by the wide-tow multi-source enables subsurface imaging with temporal and spatial resolution in the meter-range. The same survey design principles can be applied to near-surface high-resolution or ultra-high-resolution studies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) site characterization or offshore wind farm 3D site surveying. Typical site survey seismic technologies are based on hydrophone-only streamers that are towed a few meters below the sea surface. While shallow tow mitigates the receiver ghost problem at high frequencies, the operations are exposed to weather related downtime. With multi-sensor streamers, the receiver ghost problem is solved by combining pressure and particle motion recordings. This means the streamers can be towed deeper. In this paper, modern acquisition configurations are revisited, and it is shown how the same concepts have recently been used to design and acquire the first larger CCS site characterization surveys in Europe in 2022.