| dc.description.abstract | A new marine seismic surveying source technology (eSource) has recently been developed based on physical control of the bandwidth of the source elements (Coste et al., 2014). The objective of the new seismic source is to reduce the potential environmental impact of seismic surveying operations on marine life. This new seismic source greatly limits the energy emissions at higher frequencies, while retaining the low-frequency bandwidth output that is crucial to seismic survey imaging.
This paper firstly introduces the new seismic source design considerations based on a literature review, fol-lowed by the eSource signature outputs simulated using the commercial airgun source modelling software package Gundalf™. In comparison with the conventional seismic sources, the potential environmental impact benefits from the new source are analysed in detail under different frequency weighting systems proposed for low-frequency (LF), mid-frequency (MF) and high-frequency (HF) hearing cetacean groups. This quantitative analysis is supplemented with a case study of an array arrangement comprising of conventional/eSource array elements that has been modelled and subsequently implemented for a marine seismic survey within the North West Shelf of Western Australia. | en_US |
