Recent advances in optimized geophysical survey design

Surveydesignultimatelydictatesthequalityofsubsurface information provided by practical implementations of geophysicalmethods.Itisthereforecriticaltodesignexperimental procedures that cost effectively produce those data that maximize the desired information. This review cites recent advances in statistical experimental design techniques applied in the earth sciences. Examples from geoelectrical, crosswell and surface seismic, and microseismic monitoring methodsareincluded.Usingoverdetermined1Dand2Dgeoelectrical examples, a minor subset of judiciously chosen measurementsprovidesalargepercentageoftheinformation content theoretically offered by the geoelectrical method. In contrast, an underdetermined 2D seismic traveltime tomography design study indicates that the information content increases almost linearly with the amount of traveltime data source-receiver pairs considered until the underdeterminancyisreducedsubstantially.Anexperimentaldesignstudy of frequency-domain seismic-waveform inversion experiments reveals that a few optimally chosen frequencies offer asmuchsubsurfaceinformationasthefullbandwidth.Anonlinear experimental design for a seismic amplitude-versusangle survey identifies those incidence angles most important for characterizing a reservoir.Anonlinear design example shows that designing microseismic monitoring surveys based on array aperture is a poor strategy that almost certainlyleadstosuboptimaldesigns.