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The application of large volume airgun sources to the onshore-offshore seismic surveys: implication of the experimental results in northern South China Sea

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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Onshore-offshore seismic experiments were carried out for the first time in northern South China Sea using large volume airgun sources at sea and seismic stations on land. The experimental results indicate that seismic signals from the new airgun array of R/V Shiyan 2 can be detected as far as 255 km. The signal effective area reaches nearly 50000 km2, which covers Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta. Compared with the old airgun array, the signal amplitude, propagation distance and effective area of the new airgun array have been increased notably, which demonstrates that the upgrade of the airgun source was successful. Comparisons with previous experimental results in other regions show that the shooting effect of the new airgun array is similar to those best airgun sources in the world. Especially, it is a new breakthrough in using the permanent seismic stations onshore to record long distance airgun signals offshore, which has great significance to the realization of the “seismic radar” concept and the 3D seismic surveys of crustal structure in coastal areas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Qiu XueLin, Xu HuiLong, Shi XiaoBin, Zhao MingHui & Xia ShaoHong

  2. Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Qiu XueLin & Chen Yong

  3. Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Zhu RiXiang

  4. Earthquake Administration of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, 510070, China

    Ye ChunMing

Authors
  1. Qiu XueLin
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  2. Chen Yong
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  3. Zhu RiXiang
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  4. Xu HuiLong
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  5. Shi XiaoBin
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  6. Ye ChunMing
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  7. Zhao MingHui
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  8. Xia ShaoHong
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qiu XueLin.

Additional information

Supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZCX3-SW-234), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40674051, 40574019 and 40276015), Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 021557) and South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (Grant No. LYQY200302)

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Qiu, X., Chen, Y., Zhu, R. et al. The application of large volume airgun sources to the onshore-offshore seismic surveys: implication of the experimental results in northern South China Sea. CHINESE SCI BULL 52, 553–560 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0051-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0051-1

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