Downhole
Systems Links

I'm generally
interested in borehole geophysics and try to keep an eye on companies
which manufacture/sell downhole and logging gear, particularly equipment
related to VSP and crosswell acquisition. I'm currently spending a
reasonable amount of time investigating

a) Downhole/Borehole energy
sources for crosswell and RVSP profiling
b) Multi-level 3C geophone
arrays for crosswell and standard VSPs

so the links below include
some tangential pages which might have a bearing on (a) or (b). Below
references to equipment manufacturers/retailers, service companies
(incomplete), and research institutions.

If you have any
ideas, comments, or would like to add a link, drop me a line at
[email-masked]

AnaLOG

General well logging
info

Applied Acoustics
Engineering

Sub bottom profiling
systems (sparkers,boomers)

AAE doesn't make
borehole gear but they do make a nice power pack for running marine
sparker/boomer systems; it could probably be adapted for use with a
downhole sparker.

Auslog

Logging Systems

Avalon Sciences Ltd.

Locking VSP Arrays

Avalon
seems to make large, expensive, and very cool looking locking 3C arrays
for VSP work. I saw a demo at SEG and the lever-type locking mechanism
seemed OK but the price tag casually mentioned was well beyond the
typical academic budget. I think they claim to expand up to 42 levels, all
running off of  standard 7 conductor wireline.

Bwsgeophysik Co.

General Instrument
Vendor

Some surface sources
that might be useful for VSP including a couple accelerated weight drop
systems.

Createch Industries

VSP Systems

Now owned by Sercel
(see below).

Century Geophysical

Logging Systems

Old
school logging gear manufacturer. Lots of tools including full-waveform
sonic and gyro deviation. They sell complete systems with controller +
winch and also assemble mid-size logging trucks. I've never used one of
their systems.

Delta Epsilon

Portable Logging
Systems

Digipulse

Surface Seismic
Sources

Digipulse makes
accelerated weight drop sources with various configurations. I've been
pondering their combined P/S wave truck mounted system for near-surface
VSP. Need to find someone who has tried their system out....

Downhole Surveys

Winches

A combined
service/equipment supplier. They have a line of compact winches (down to
3000 m) for logging and downhole tool deployment.

GEO Resources

Seismic Sources,
Boomers, Sparkers, High Voltage Gear

An interesting
company; among several product lines and they custom-fab
sparkers including a borehole version (not pictured on their
page).

Geospace
Technologies

Geophones,
hydrophones, hydrophone & VSP arrays

Geospace
manufactures both 3C/4C locking arrays and hydrophone systems. Their
current borehole 3C system digitizes downhole with an optical uplink and
is deployed on modified wireline which includes a couple of fiber
strands. They claim the system scales to 48 4C levels with real-time
acquisition at 1/4 ms. The sonde clamps with a lever arm - I can't find
the stats for clamping force (I've seen them somewhere ....). [Note
: This company was formerly called Concord Tech - There is a second page
for Geospace LP, also owned by
OYO - they actually do sensor fabrication.]

Geostuff

Locking 3C Sondes

One-person shop which
makes an odd assortment of items including single-level locking 3C tools.
Their tool uses a bow-spring mechanism to lock and is designed for
near-surface shear wave profiling. Other options include gimballed phones
and integrated magnetic sensors for component alignment although I'm not
sure whether this is a good idea. The prices seem relatively reasonable
(last I checked) if you don't need more than one level.

Geotomographie

Hydrophone arrays,
downhole sparkers

Geotomographie's most
interesting products (from my perspective) are a series of downhole
sparkers, both a fluid-coupled source for P-wave work and pneumatically
clamped source for S-waves. GISCO (see below) are their North American
distributor.

Geovista

Logging systems

UK based, seems
to focus on groundwater/geotechnical applications but with some systems
rated to shallow exploration depths. Marketed advantage is "stackable"
downhole sondes which might provide more flexibility than the standard
multi-parameter tools sold by other vendors . Sonic, cameras (deployable
off the same winch system) and the usual stuff  but no  locking
3C phones (too bad!).

GISCO Geo

General instrument
vendor

GISCO is a general
vendor for geophysical gear of many types including some logging gear.
They also sell several downhole sources and AWD systems for surface shot
locations. Among the borehole sources sold are the Ballard shear hammer
(pneumatic locking mechanism) and Geotomographie's  sparker.

GPR
International

General instrument
vendor (some refurbished)

Focuses on GPR but
also has a selection of used geophysical gear for other methods, including
power packs for sparker systems etc.

High Tech Inc.

Hydrophones, custom
hydrophone arrays

High Tech makes
hydrophone systems for both deep water and borehole
environments.

I/O Systems

General Seismic
Instrumentation

I'm not sure if IO
makes borehole equipment but they do make a really neat 3C MEMS sensor
(called VectorSeis) which would be great to have in a VSP tool. One nifty
attribute is a broad response curve with a decent low-end (down to
1/2 Hz I think).

Marschall Acoustics

Hydrophones, custom
arrays (3C and P)

Mitcham Industries

General equipment
sales

Occasionally some
nifty used stuff ... highly variable selection.

Mt. Sopris Instruments

Logging Systems

Manufacturer of
portable logging systems.  I collected part of my thesis dataset
using one of their units. They have a nice system; the winches are easy to
deploy and operate. I have used their gamma, em conductivity, and sonic
tools for an environmental characterization project.

Northwest
Geophysics

General Equipment
Rental

A company which rents
a variety of near-surface gear - I looked at them because they rent three
borehole sources including a sparker.

Olson Instruments

Crosswell Gear for NDE
community

OYO Corp.

Suspension Logger, 3C
sondes

Robertson Geologging

Portable Logging
Systems

R.T. Clark Industries

General Equipment
Sales

Lots of used equipment
and a hodge-podge of new stuff.  They sell a 2.5 in. OD downhole
airgun which might (emphasis) be useful for crosswell of RVSP work.
They also sell the Ballard
downhole shear source, a manually activated vertical hammer which
clamps to the borehole using a pneumatic bladder.

Sensor
Technology Limited

Hydrophone Systems,
Piezoceramics

Canadian company which
makes a broad array of hydrophones and piezoceramic elements. They make
one hydrophone (SQ-31) for borehole measurements.

Sercel

General Seismic
Products, Including Locking 3C VSP Arrays

Sercel
sells a 100 level array (!) for VSP work .... they call it "MaxiWave"
....interesting. Lever-type clamping system. They digitize downhole and
claim they can push data out at 3.5 Mbps over 7 conductor
wireline.

Soils Engineering and
Geophysics

Crosswell systems for
ASTM soil analysis types

Vibrometric

Borehole sources and
3C VSP Arrays

Vibrometric
makes an 8-level locking 3C geophone array. Each sonde uses a lever-arm to
clamp and is powered by an on-board NiCd battery. DSI (see below) uses one
of Vibrometric's tools for their hard-rock VSP surveys.

Educational/Government
Institutions

CGISS (Boise State)

Academic
Institution

CGISS has a range of
near-surface borehole tools.

Downhole Seismic
Initiative (at CGS)

Candian Gov. Research
Group

DSI is a research
initiative focusing on using downhole VSP methods to image hard-rock
targets, often in a mining context. They own an 8-level 3C array
manufactured by Vibrometric (see above). They also put out an excellent
set of open-source matlab codes for VSP processing.

LBNL's Geophysical Measurement
Facility

US. DOE
National
Lab

LBNL has a nice
collection of downhole gear (see list) including several sources (piezo (2
and 4 inch), 2 orbital vibrators, a 24 level hydrophone array, and a
couple of short 3C tools. Ernie Majer has been accumulating gear for a
while ;) LBNL also has a couple of vibroseis trucks for VSP work.

University of Bergen
3C
Design

Academic
Institution

Some folks at Bergen
started to design/build a 3C tool for academic use but I'm not sure
whether the project is still going.

USGS - Borehole
Geophysics Applied To Geohydrology

Government Research,
USGS Water Resources

Service
Companies

[Note
: I know this list is incomplete - just send me a note to add an
entry]

Baker Hughes

General Service Company :
VSP, Crosswell & Logging

Big company - does
everything ....

Halliburton

General Service Company
: VSP, Crosswell
& Logging

Big company - does
everything ....

Paulsson Geophysical

VSP/Crosswell Service
Provider

Paulsson (PGSI)
provides downhole seismic services. They have several kickin' 80 level 3C
strings which they can deploy simultaneously in the same well. I believe
the 3C sondes have hydraulic clamping mechanisms. Paulsson also has
several downhole sources including a big clamped vertical vibrator which
they deploy on a huge 16 wheeler.

READ Group

VSP/General Downhole
Service Provider

Schlumberger

General Service Company :
VSP & Logging

Big company - does
everything ....

Tucker Energy Services

General Service Company :
Open/Cased Hole Logging

Z-Seis

Crosswell Service
Provider

Formerly known as
Tomoseis, Z-Seis provides crosswell acquisition services. They usually run
a large piezo source and a multilevel hydrophone string.

Random Equipment Links

Fun stuff - may have nothing to do with the borehole themed
links above (!)

Symmetric Research

A/D Systems

Main products: 24 bit
A/D, 8 channels, to 5000 Hz,

Applied Physics Systems

Fluxgate Mag.
Sens.

Model 533 is a
minaturized 3-axis sensor

Bartington Instruments

Magnetometers

I like the Mag566 low power
3-axis fluxgate

Crossbow Technology

Fluxgate Mag.
Sens.
Orientation Sensors
Accelerometers
Gyro/Inertial
Guidance

Honeywell

Magnetic
sensors
guidance systems

Some soild state
3-axis fluxgate systems