Hydrocarbon Potential of Pre-cenozoic Strata in the North Yellow Sea Basin

The North Yellow Sea Basin ( NYSB ), which was developed on the basement of North China (Huabei) continental block, is a typical continental Mesozoic Cenozoic sedimentary basin in the sea area. Its Mesozoic basin is a residual basin, below which there is probably a larger Paleozoic sedimentary basin. The North Yellow Sea Basin comprises four sags and three uplifts. Of them, the eastern sag is a Mesozoic Cenozoic sedimentary sag in NYSB and has the biggest sediment thickness; the current Korean drilling wells are concentrated in the eastern sag. This sag is comparatively rich in oil and gas resources and thus has a relatively good petroleum prospect in the sea. The central sag has also accommodated thick Mesozoic-Cenozoic sediments. The latest research results show that there are three series of hydrocarbon source rocks in the North Yellow Sea Basin, namely, black shales of the Paleogene, Jurassic and Cretaceous. The principal hydrocarbon source rocks in NYSB are the Mesozoic black shale. According to the drilling data of Korea, the black shales of the Paleogene, Jurassic and Cretaceous have all come up to the standards of good and mature source rocks. The NYSB owns an intact system of oil generation, reservoir and capping rocks that can help hydrocarbon to form in the basin and thus it has the great potential of oil and gas. The vertical distribution of the hydrocarbon resources is mainly considered to be in the Cretaceous and then in the Jurassic.     

Relationship between the seismicity and geologic structure of the Blanco Transform Fault Zone

Morphologic studies of an oceanic transform, the Blanco Transform Fault Zone (BTFZ), have shown it to consist of a series of extensional basins that offset the major strike-slip faults. The largest of the extensional basins, the Cascadia Depression, effectively divides the transform into a northwest segment, composed of several relatively short strike-slip faults, and a southeast segment dominated by fewer, longer faults. The regional seismicity distribution (m _b 4.0) and frequency-magnitude relationships (b-values) of the BTFZ show that the largest magnitude events are located on the southeast segment. Furthermore, estimates of the cumulative seismic moment release and seismic moment release rate along the southeast segment are significantly greater than that of the northwest segment. These observations suggest that slip along the southeast segment is accommodated by a greater number of large magnitude earthquakes. Comparison of the seismic moment rate, derived from empirical estimates, with the seismic moment rate determined from plate motion constraints suggests a difference in the seismic coupling strength between the segments. This difference in coupling may partially explain the disparity in earthquake size distribution. However, the results appear to confirm the relation between earthquake size and fault length, observed along continental strike-slip faults, for this oceanic transform.     

Relationship between Shot-Induced Noise and Shot Interval in Seismic Refraction Experiments at Sea

Seismic noise induced by the seismic source during continuous profiling reduces the signal-to-noise ratio and hence the data quality. This noise is largely dependent on the shot interval. In this paper, the noise amplitude of refraction seismic records from a special experiment is analysed as a function of the shot interval. An empirical exponential relationship between mean peak noise amplitude and shot interval is deduced. By increasing the shot interval, the induced noise can be minimized on all successive records. This results in an improvement of the data, predominantly the signal-to-noise ratio. Because the seismic signal and the shot-induced noise have nearly the same spectra, the chance of improving the signal-to-noise ratio by stacking is significantly reduced.     

Dereverberation of marine reflection seismic data by a spatial combination of predictive deconvolution and velocity filtering

Contamination of seismic reflection records at early times by first-order water reverberations can be especially severe during survey operations over hard and flat sea floors on the continental shelf or in lake environments. A new dereverberation scheme based on two classical techniques — predictive deconvolution and velocity filtering — has been developed to address this problem. The techniques are combined spatially to take advantage of their complementary offset- and time-dependent properties. Stage I of the scheme consists of applying predictive deconvolution at short offset. The data are previously conditioned by a normal moveout correction with the water velocity which restores the periodicity of the reverberations in the offset-time plane and enhances the performance of deconvolution. Stage II of the scheme involves velocity filtering in the common-midpoint domain which is particularly effective at long offset where the moveout difference between primary reflections and reverberations is largest. The dereverberation scheme is well suited for the initial processing of large volumes of data due to the general availability of cost-effective deconvolution and velocity filtering algorithms in seismic processing software packages. Practical implementation issues are illustrated by a field example from the GLIMPCE survey in Lake Superior.Lithoprobe Publication No. 475.     

Effect of dispersion on impulsive waves

The generation and propagation of surface waves resulting from suddenly created disturbances over water surfaces is investigated. The initial boundary conditions defining the disturbance are given either by a velocity of the free surface, an initial elevation of the free surface or a pressure impulsively applied on the free surface. It is shown that the corresponding three forms of solutions are related by a simple time derivative. Linear solutions are obtained in the cases where the wave motion is assumed to be nondispersive, mildly dispersive and fully dispersive, as well as in the case where the motion is given by the method of stationary phase. Criteria are established to indicate the limit of validity of each method.     

Tectonic Significance of the Taitung Canyon, Huatung Basin, East of Taiwan

Since the beginning of formation of Proto-Taiwan, the subducting Philippine (PH) Sea plate has moved continuously through time in the N307° direction with respect to Eurasia (EU), tearing the EU plate. The subducting EU plate includes a continental part in the north and an oceanic part in the south. The boundary B between these two domains corresponds to the eastern prolongation of the northeastern South China Sea ocean-continent transition zone. In the Huatung Basin (east of Taiwan), the Taitung Canyon is N065° oriented and is close and parallel to B. Seismic profiles show that the southern flank of the canyon corresponds to a fault with a normal component of a few tens of meters in the sediments and possible dextral shearing. Several crustal earthquakes of magnitude >%6 are located beneath the trend of the Taitung Canyon and focal mechanisms suggest that the motion is right-lateral. Thus, faulting within the sedimentary sequence beneath the Taitung Canyon is a consequence of underlying dextral strike-slip crustal motions. As the continental part of the EU slab located north of B has been recently detached, some subsequent dextral strike-slip motion might be expected within the EU slab, along the ocean-continent transition zone, which is a potential zone of weakness. We suggest that the dextral strike-slip motion along the ocean-continent boundary of the EU slab might trigger the observed dextral strike-slip motion within the overlying PH Sea crust and the associated faulting within the sediments of the Huatung Basin, beneath the Taitung Canyon. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Design of a 3D Chirp Sub-bottom Imaging System

Chirp sub-bottom profilers are marine acoustic devices that use a known and repeatable source signature (1–24 kHz) to produce decimetre vertical resolution cross-sections of the sub-seabed. Here the design and development of the first true 3D Chirp system is described. When developing the design, critical factors that had to be considered included spatial aliasing, and precise positioning of sources and receivers. Full 3D numerical modelling of the combined source and receiver directivity was completed to determine optimal source and receiver geometries. The design incorporates four source transducers (1.5–13 kHz) that can be arranged into different configurations, including Maltese Cross, a square and two separated pairs. The receive array comprises 240 hydrophones in 60 groups whose group-centres are separated by 25 cm in both horizontal directions, with each hydrophone group containing four individual elements and a pre-amplifier. After careful consideration, it was concluded that the only way to determine with sufficient accuracy the source–receiver geometry, was to fix the sources and receivers within a rigid array. Positional information for the array is given by a Real Time Kinematic GPS and attitude system incorporating four antennas to give position, heading, pitch and roll. It is shown that this system offers vertical positioning accuracy with a root-mean-square (rms) error less than 2.6 cm, while the horizontal positioning rms error was less than 2.0 cm. The system is configured so that the Chirp source signature can be chosen by software aboard the acquisition vessel. The complete system is described and initial navigational and seismic data results are presented. These data demonstrate that the approach of using fixed source-receiver geometry combined with RTK navigation can provide complete 3D imaging of the sub-surface.     

等高线自动绘制中断层处理的新方法

提出了一种断层处理新方法——分块法与断层恢复法合成算法，这种方法兼有分块法与断层恢复法的优点同时又克服了其不足，较好地解决了含逆断层时煤层底板等高线自动绘制及任意边界的构网问题，使绘出的等值线图误差较小，更加符合实际。     

海洋天然气水合物的地震识别方法研究

天然气水合物作为21世纪新的自然能源将为人类的生存发展服务。20世纪60年代证实，俄罗斯西伯利亚的麦索亚哈气田为典型的天然气水合物形成的气田，70年代又在海底发现了固体天然气水合物岩样。1971年，RStoll首先将地震剖面中的似海底反向层解释为海洋天然气水合物存在的标志，后来被深海钻探证实，从此地震方法成为大面积研究天然气水合物的重要手段。天然气水合物既是潜在能源，也是影响环境和形成灾害的因素之一，因此，研究天然气水合物是人类在21世纪的重要课题。探讨海洋天然气水合物的地震识别方法，由于这项工作刚刚起步，还没有做出具体的成果，在此只能根据我们仅有的工作和参照国外分开的出版物，以及出国访问得到的有关资料进行分析，提出我们的一些基本设想，与各位专家探讨。