The Petroleum Institute - Petroleum Geosciences

Geophysics Equipment

Dr. Ali taking gravity readings in the
Musandam Peninsula

Introduction
The Petroleum Institute’s Geophysics group is equipped with state-of-the-art digital instrumentation for geophysical surveying. The equipment is extensively used for teaching and research in The PETROLEUM GEOSCIENCES Program.
Students acquire data during field trips, and process and interpret the data when back in the Petroleum Geoscience computer lab.

Seismic Equipment
Currently we have two 24 channel Geometrics seismographs, which are used with both vertical and 3-component geophones. The equipment is used for conducting high-resolution seismic reflection and refraction surveys onshore. Seismic processing is performed using Landmark’s ProMAX system running on our Linux workstations.
Seismic energy sources include an accelerated weight drop system (see picture), mini-sosie vibrator, and sledgehammers.

Gravity Equipment
Our Scintrex CG-5 gravimeter has a maximum resolution of 1 microGal. The instrument is primarily used for mapping bedrock topography and to delineate subsurface rocks of differing densities. The unit is highly portable and capable of fast reading cycles. It can auto-correct for tilt, gravity tides, temperature changes and seismic noise. The data is usually transferred to a mapping package, such as Landmark’s Geographix or Golden Software’s Surfer, or may be modeled in the Geosoft Oasis software.

Magnetics Equipment
Our Geometrics G-858 magnetometer utilizes a split-beam Cesium vapor sensor that has a maximum resolution of 1nT. Attaching a second sensor provides the ability to simultaneously measure field gradient. After data collection the data is typically transferred to PC and contoured in the Geographix mapping package.

The PI's Geophysical Equipment

Setting up seismic line near Al Ain

Seismic	Seismograph	2 x 24 channel Geometrics Geode, 12V battery operated 2 x 120m geophone cable with 5m takeouts 4 x 100m trigger extension cables 6 x impact triggers & plates
	Vertical Geophones	60 x 40Hz Geo Space geophones
	Multi-component geophones	12 x 10Hz Geo Space multi-component geophones
	Weight drop source	1 x PEG40 40kg accelerated weight drop
	Vibrator source	1 x mini-sosie road tamper
Magnetometer		1 x Geometrics G-858 magnetometer 2 x Sensors, Self-oscillating split-beam Cesium Vapor
Gravimeter		1 x Scintrex CG5 gravimeter
GPS		4 x Garmin GPSMAP 76CS, 12 channel receiver with WAAS, digital compass and barometric altimeter
Petrophysics	Permeameter	1 x New England Research Portable Air Permeameter
Petrophysics	Spectrometer	1 x GRS-2000 Multispec Gamma-ray Spectrometer, 512 channel spectral analysis, for quantitative assays of U, Th, K concentrations, and radiometric measurements.