Seismic While Drilling: Fundamentals of Drill-Bit Seismic for Exploration

The purpose of this book is to give a theoretical and practical introduction to seismic-while-drilling by using the drill-bit noise. This recent technology offers important products for geophysical control of drilling. It involves aspects typical of borehole seismics and of the drilling control surveying, hitherto the sole domain of mudlogging.

For aspects related to the drill-bit source performance and borehole acoustics, the book attempts to provide a connection between experts working in geophysics and in drilling.

There are different ways of thinking related to basic knowledge, operational procedures and precision in the observation of the physical quantities. The goal of the book is to help "build a bridge" between geophysicists involved in seismic while drilling - who may need to familiarize themselves with methods and procedures of drilling and drilling-rock mechanics - and drillers involved in geosteering and drilling of "smart wells" - who may have to familiarize themselves with seismic signals, wave resolution and radiation. For instance, an argument of common interest for drilling and seismic while drilling studies is the monitoring of the drill-string and bit vibrations.

This volume contains a large number of real examples of SWD data analysis and applications.

1. Introduction and overview. 2. Principles of drilling. 3. General theory: drill-bit seismic waves. 4. General theory: drill-string waves and noise fields. 5. Acquisition of SWD data. 6. Preprocessing of SWD data. 7. Processing of signal and noise RVSP fields. 8. Applications.