O is for Offset

Offset is one of those jargon words that geophysicists kick around without a second thought, but which might bewilder more geological interpreters. Like most jargon words, offset can mean a couple of different things: 

• Offset distance, which is usually what is meant by simply 'offset'.
• Offset angle, which is often what we really care about.
• We are not talking about offset wells, or fault offset.

What is offset?

Sherriff's Encyclopedic Dictionary is characteristically terse:

Offset: The distance from the source point to a geophone or to the center of a geophone group.

The concept of offset only really makes sense in the pre-stack world — to field data and gathers. The traces in stacked data (everyday seismic volumes) combine data from many offsets. So let's look at the geometry of seismic acquisition. A map shows the layout of shots (red) and receivers (blue). We can define offset and azimuth A at the midpoint of every shot–receiver pair, on a map (centre) and in section (right):

Offset distance applies to traces. The offset distance is the straight-line distance from the vibrator, shot-hole or air-gun (or any other source) to the particular receiver that recorded the trace in question. If we know the geometry of the acquisition, and the size of the recording patch or length of the streamers, then we can calculate offset distance exactly. 

Offset angle applies to specific samples on a trace. The offset angle is the incident angle of the reflected ray that that a given sample represents. Samples at the top of a trace have larger offset angles than those at the bottom, even though they have the same offset distance. To compute these angles, we need to know the vertical distances, and this requires knowledge of the velocity field, which is mostly unknown. So offset angle is not objective, but a partly interpreted quantity.

Why do we care?

Acquiring longer offsets can help undershoot gaps in a survey, or image beneath salt canopies and other recumbent features. Longer offsets also helps with velocity estimation, because we see more moveout.

Looking at how the amplitude of a reflection changes with offset is the basis of AVO analysis. AVO analysis, in turn, is the basis of many fluid and lithology prediction techniques.

Offset is one of the five canonical dimensions of pre-stack seismic data, along with inline, crossline, azimuth, and frequency. As such, it is a key part of the search for sparsity in the 5D interpolation method perfected by Daniel Trad at CGGVeritas. 

Recently, geophysicists have become interested not just in the angle of a reflection, but in the orientation of a reflection too. This is because, in some geological circumstances, the amplitude of a reflection depends on the orientation with respect to the compass, as well as the incidence angle. For example, looking at data in both of these dimensions can help us understand the earth's stress field.

Offset is the characteristic attribute of pre-stack seismic data. Seismic data would be nothing without it.