A single-ship telemetric seismic refraction system

A telemetering, recoverable, sonobuoy system for seismic refraction surveying using a single ship is described. The novel feature of the system is two-way telemetry between ship and buoys, enabling the setting of gain controls in the buoys and conservation of battery power between recording periods. This makes it possible to have several widely separated buoys simultaneously record the shots. Thus a reversed or multiple-reversed profile is obtained from a single line of shots. By careful design of the telemetry system, a maximum range of 50 km is achieved with an antenna height of only 50 ft on the ship.