Interpretation of gravity and seismic data, and assessment of the performance of the MUN swept impact seismic source in the Howley Basin, Howley, Newfoundland

Vasquez, Oscar Eli (2017) Interpretation of gravity and seismic data, and assessment of the performance of the MUN swept impact seismic source in the Howley Basin, Howley, Newfoundland. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The Deer Lake Basin is a late Paleozoic, non-marine sedimentary basin located in western New- foundland. It trends northeast-southwest lying parallel to the Cabot Fault Zone and is composed of two lateral basins separated by a positive ower structure. The western portion of the basin has been labeled the Cormack basin, whereas the eastern portion has been deemed the Howley Basin. Because of petroliferous units found within the Deer Lake Basin's lacustrine facies there has been an interest in oil exploration within the area. This interest has led to extensive geological and geophysical studies performed in the Cormack basin leading to a characterization of its stratigraphy and structure, as well as an uneasy consensus on the development of the greater Deer Lake Basin. In contrast, there has been little geophysical exploration in the Howley Basin. The seismic study performed in the Howley Basin has revealed the eastern edge of the basin to be heavily fractured and reveals 3 major stratigraphic units where the gravity survey has led to more precise identification of major faults in the basin. The surveys also reveal thinning of the basin heading east. Two stratigraphic models are created with one interpreting the lateral termination of the North Brook formation and the other suggesting a major fault displacing the stratigraphic units. Both models discussed can be used to support the theory of the Howley Basin undergoing a history of localized transpression and transtension. The source study reveals that the filtering effect of the application of the MUNSIST isn't effective in this scenario as the frequency of the noise is often higher in the field than what is applied by the source, and thus a bandpass filter is still needed. In addition, preliminary studies of the source suggests that applying different source sweep impact frequencies to the ground is not needed, and that applying more energy to the ground by using higher frequency sweeps can result in higher signal to noise ratio and amplitude reflections.

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