A Proposal for an Industry-Scale Seismic Survey in the Los Angeles Basin

Daniel D. Hollis, & Robert W. Clayton

Published August 6, 2018, SCEC Contribution #8289, 2018 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #097

We are proposing a large-scale seismic survey for the Los Angeles sedimentary basin for the purpose of determining the structure of the basin and the underlying crust. We believe the survey will be valuable for creating densely sampled micro-zonation maps for seismic hazard and for providing better velocity models for strong motion modeling. The survey may reveal structures that show some hydrocarbon potential as well has image the aquifer system in the basin.

We are planning on a survey that will sample the basin at 10 sensors per square kilometer, which is about an order of magnitude less dense that a standard industry 3D survey, but which should provide adequate coverage for determining the basin structure and the 3D velocity variations. The survey will have about 18,000 receiver positions that will be occupied by a rolling get of 5000 sensors, each occupying a given position for 30 days of passive recording. It will take 4 months for this array to traverse the basin. We plan to have a fixed array of 200 three-component nodes that will record for the entire duration of the survey. In addition, we are planning on 60-70 deep hole (50m +/-) explosive charges to help determine the shallow P-wave velocities, and to look for possible reflections.

We are planning to fund this project with an industry consortium that will be composed of primarily oil companies that have production activity in the basin, and potentially water districts and city that are in the basin. The survey will be carried out by a geophysical contractor that has experience operating in urban areas. The estimated cost is $5-6M. We are in the process of requesting industry sponsorship for this project.

Key Words
seismology, ambient noise, reflection

Citation
Hollis, D. D., & Clayton, R. W. (2018, 08). A Proposal for an Industry-Scale Seismic Survey in the Los Angeles Basin. Poster Presentation at 2018 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Seismology