Rotation sensor requirements for exploration seismology

Everhard Muyzert

Rotational seismology may contribute to solving some of the longstanding challenges in exploration seismic including near surface perturbations, noise (ground-roll) attenuation, velocity estimation and imaging. It is most likely that for any proposed solution the rotation data will be combined with geophone data. For most applications this would require that the rotation data is measured with similar accuracy as the geophone data. We analyse the geophone specifications and derive rotation sensors requirements from it. These include expected frequency response, dynamic range and practical considerations. An ambient noise model is also derived which shows that current sensors need considerable lower self noise levels. The aim of this analysis is set targets for development of exploration rotation sensors that can hopefully be met in the future.