Oil and gas are vital to many industries, and important to the maintenance of modern industrial civilization. There is a number of methods used in hydrocarbon detection.
Seismic surveying among others is the most popular and widely used.
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Seismic reflection is commonly used for mapping subsurface stratigraphy and structures to delineate traps.
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Well logging gives high-resolution data on rocks and fluids in near-borehole area.
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Gravity helps to find oil and gas bearing rocks due to their lower density.
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Magnetics is used to determine geometry and depth of different structures such as basins, faults, folds and salt diapirs.
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Seismic reflection detects geological traps under seabed level.
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Marine magnetotellurics (mMT or mCSEM – marine Controlled Source Electro-Magnetics) provides pseudo-direct allocation of hydrocarbons because of resistivity changes over geological traps.