Near-surface common-midpoint seismic data recorded with automatically planted geophones

Abstract

[1] We introduce the Autojuggie II as a device to speed the emplacement of geophones for near-surface seismic common-midpoint (CMP) surveys. Hydraulic cylinders force rigidly interconnected geophones into the ground simultaneously and automatically. We demonstrate that accurate CMP data can be recorded with geophones planted by this device, and that a CMP stacked section can be processed, from which reliable geologic information can be extracted. To make this demonstration, we compare the stacked section to a coincident and parallel section, whose data was acquired using conventionally hand-planted geophones. The two sections are very similar in amplitude, phase, and frequency. A slight difference in coherency exists in a ∼35-ms reflection; the stack corresponding to the automatically planted geophones shows better coherency relative to the comparison stack. However, the similarity of the sections indicates that accurate CMP data can be recorded using geophones planted by the Autojuggie II.