6.2 Seismic Dataset
6.2.1 Vintage Data Challenges
The term “Vintage Data” denotes essentially data that were acquired before the
eighties/nineties, with technologies and protocols that today are not used anymore.
This introduces a wide range of issues that cannot be solved easily because the
seismic data are currently processed cannot handle them directly (Diviacco et al.
2015; Diviacco and Busato 2012; Diviacco 2012). Mostly this is due to the fact that
a lot of information is not available and has to be reconstructed manually. At the
same time, vintage data have several limitations in the resolution of data, in
particular spatial resolution.
Positioning itself, sometime, can be a problem, because satellite positioning was
generally not available at that time.
Media recovery can be a serious problem as well. In fact tapes like old digital
9 track tapes can suffer from what is generally called “sticky shed syndrome”,
where humidity triggers a process of hydrolysis that results in an adhesive build up
that makes the tape almost impossible to play. Recovering data from old media can,
therefore, be difficult and risky whenever only one copy of the tape is available, as
possible deterioration of the media during the process of reading can lead to a
definitive loss of the data.
When it is not a matter of the tape itself, it can be a matter of the tape reader.
These devices, in fact, tend to become obsolete very quickly and spare parts are
difficult to find.
Specific care is needed when only paper seismic sections are available. In this
case it is possible to use the process described by Miles et al. (2007) and Diviacco
et al. (2015), where paper sections are scanned and the images are converted into
actual seismic data estimating the value of each sample in the traces through a
statistical analysis of the image grid in the vicinity of the sample. When tape
reading is problematic and several records are not available, seismic data
reconstructed from paper sections can be added to fill the gaps.
Geo-referencing vintage data often results in the need to digitize paper
positioning maps.
Of course, all this is a time consuming process that involves specific economic
investments. When these latter are not available, there can be serious limitations on
the possible exploitation of such data to develop new ideas.
Notwithstanding all these issues, vintage data have potentialities that recently
acquired data often cannot offer. For example, vintage data were often acquired in a
different geopolitical situation so that they can have a regional coverage that could
be difficult to obtain now. In addition, often, seismic sources used at that time were
much more powerful, gaining deeper penetration. This cannot be easily obtained
today for environmental reasons.
6 New Insights into the Black Sea Basin, in the Light of the Reprocessing of. . .
97
6.2.1 Vintage Data Challenges
The term “Vintage Data” denotes essentially data that were acquired before the
eighties/nineties, with technologies and protocols that today are not used anymore.
This introduces a wide range of issues that cannot be solved easily because the
seismic data are currently processed cannot handle them directly (Diviacco et al.
2015; Diviacco and Busato 2012; Diviacco 2012). Mostly this is due to the fact that
a lot of information is not available and has to be reconstructed manually. At the
same time, vintage data have several limitations in the resolution of data, in
particular spatial resolution.
Positioning itself, sometime, can be a problem, because satellite positioning was
generally not available at that time.
Media recovery can be a serious problem as well. In fact tapes like old digital
9 track tapes can suffer from what is generally called “sticky shed syndrome”,
where humidity triggers a process of hydrolysis that results in an adhesive build up
that makes the tape almost impossible to play. Recovering data from old media can,
therefore, be difficult and risky whenever only one copy of the tape is available, as
possible deterioration of the media during the process of reading can lead to a
definitive loss of the data.
When it is not a matter of the tape itself, it can be a matter of the tape reader.
These devices, in fact, tend to become obsolete very quickly and spare parts are
difficult to find.
Specific care is needed when only paper seismic sections are available. In this
case it is possible to use the process described by Miles et al. (2007) and Diviacco
et al. (2015), where paper sections are scanned and the images are converted into
actual seismic data estimating the value of each sample in the traces through a
statistical analysis of the image grid in the vicinity of the sample. When tape
reading is problematic and several records are not available, seismic data
reconstructed from paper sections can be added to fill the gaps.
Geo-referencing vintage data often results in the need to digitize paper
positioning maps.
Of course, all this is a time consuming process that involves specific economic
investments. When these latter are not available, there can be serious limitations on
the possible exploitation of such data to develop new ideas.
Notwithstanding all these issues, vintage data have potentialities that recently
acquired data often cannot offer. For example, vintage data were often acquired in a
different geopolitical situation so that they can have a regional coverage that could
be difficult to obtain now. In addition, often, seismic sources used at that time were
much more powerful, gaining deeper penetration. This cannot be easily obtained
today for environmental reasons.
6 New Insights into the Black Sea Basin, in the Light of the Reprocessing of. . .
97