← Intelligent Geophysical Exploration College

Seismic Exploration & Imaging Department

The Seismic Exploration & Imaging Department teaches the full pipeline of seismic acquisition, processing, and imaging technology for high-resolution subsurface characterization. Through hands-on work in reflection seismic processing, velocity-model building, and structural imaging, students learn techniques applicable to oil and gas exploration and CO2 storage site evaluation. Graduates can take a seismic dataset all the way from acquisition to final imaging by themselves, start to finish.

⚙️ GeoAcademy System Administration College 🖥️ AI & Computing Sciences College 🔬 Basic Sciences College ⚡ Intelligent Geophysical Exploration College 🛢️ Resource & Energy Engineering College 🌍 Applied Geoscience Solutions College 💼 Economics, Policy & Strategy for the Future College 🎓 Education & Training Development College 🚀 Innovation & International Collaboration College

Seismic Exploration & Imaging Department Gravity & Magnetic Methods Department Electromagnetic Methods Department Earthquake Seismology Department Integrated Geophysics & Interpretation Department Inversion & Modeling Department Well Logging & Petrophysics Department

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⭐ Ricker

Chair

💡 Seismic Wavelet Theory & Imaging

Researchers (real GeoVerse Lab members) 23

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1939–2022

Norman Bleistein

Researcher

💡 Co-developed (with Jack Cohen) true-amplitude Kirchhoff migration/inversion theory, unifying seismic imaging and quantitative inversion, foundational to modern FWI and migration-inversion workflows

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1940–1996

Jack K. Cohen

Researcher

💡 Co-authored (with Norman Bleistein) the seminal late-1970s papers establishing the mathematical basis of Kirchhoff-based seismic migration algorithms

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1905–1984

C. Hewitt Dix

Researcher

💡 Derived the Dix equation (1955) relating interval velocity to stacking (NMO) velocity from reflection traveltimes, the foundational formula of seismic velocity analysis

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1911–2000

John M. Crawford

Researcher

💡 Co-invented Vibroseis (with W.E.N. Doty and M.R. Lee), the continuous-signal vibratory seismic source method that replaced dynamite as the dominant land seismic source

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1894–1978

J. Clarence Karcher

Researcher

💡 Invented and commercialized the reflection seismograph (patents from 1919, first commercial survey 1921), co-founded Geophysical Service Inc. (precursor to Texas Instruments)

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1866–1932

Reginald Fessenden

Researcher

💡 Patented the first practical sonar/echo-sounding system (1914), the acoustic-source and underwater-signal foundation later adapted for marine seismic exploration

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1891–1948

Frank Rieber

Researcher

💡 Developed variable-density photographic recording for seismic data (1936), adapting sound-on-film technology to enable reproducible, automated seismic trace analysis

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1908–2008

Sidney Kaufman

Researcher

💡 Conducted the world's first offshore seismic survey for oil (1940s) at Shell Oil, and co-initiated the COCORP deep continental reflection profiling consortium

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1923–2011

Jack Oliver

Researcher

💡 Co-founded COCORP, applying petroleum-exploration seismic reflection profiling to image the deep continental crust for the first time; co-authored the foundational 1968 plate-tectonics paper 'Seismology and the New Global Tectonics'

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1900–2003

Cecil Howard Green

Researcher

💡 Co-founded Geophysical Service Inc. (with Karcher and others), the company that became Texas Instruments, building the industrial and instrumentation infrastructure of exploration seismology

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1925–2018

Roy Oliver Lindseth

Researcher

💡 Invented seismic trace inversion (Lindseth inversion), converting seismic amplitude data into pseudo-acoustic-impedance logs, and pioneered synthetic well-log generation and digital seismic signal processing

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1918–2003

J. Edward White

Researcher

💡 Made seminal contributions to shear-wave prospecting, vertical seismic profiling, full-waveform acoustic logging, and seismic-wave attenuation theory over a 30-year research career

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1933–2018

Charles K. Kao

Researcher

💡 Pioneered low-loss optical fiber technology (1966), earning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics; the physical foundation of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) fiber-optic seismic acquisition

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1905–1970

Norman Haskell

Researcher

💡 Developed the Thomson-Haskell propagator matrix method (1953) for computing Rayleigh and Love surface-wave dispersion in multilayered media, the standard computational tool for near-surface shear-velocity inversion

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1935–2024

Stuart Crampin

Researcher

💡 Advanced the theory and application of shear-wave splitting to detect stress-aligned microcrack anisotropy in the crust, foundational to modern seismic anisotropy analysis

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1881–1908

Karl Bernhard Zoeppritz

Researcher

💡 Derived the Zoeppritz equations (1919, published posthumously) relating P- and S-wave reflection/transmission amplitudes to angle of incidence, the exact mathematical foundation of AVO/AVA analysis

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1881–1953

Gustav Herglotz

Researcher

💡 Co-developed (with Emil Wiechert) the Wiechert-Herglotz method (1907) for inverting travel-time curves to recover subsurface velocity structure, the mathematical origin of traveltime tomography

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1912–1975

Norman Levinson

Researcher

💡 Developed the Levinson recursion algorithm (1947) for efficiently solving Toeplitz normal equations, the computational backbone of predictive deconvolution and multiple-suppression filtering in seismic processing

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1629–1695

Christiaan Huygens

Researcher

💡 Formulated Huygens' Principle (1678), describing wave propagation as the superposition of secondary wavelets, the foundational wave-optics concept underlying seismic survey illumination and diffraction analysis

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1889–1976

Harry Nyquist

Researcher

💡 Established the Nyquist sampling criterion (1928), the foundational sampling theory underlying seismic data interpolation, regularization, and simultaneous-source (blended) data separation

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1850–1919

Woldemar Voigt

Researcher

💡 Developed the Voigt (Kelvin-Voigt) viscoelastic material model, the rheological foundation of seismic attenuation (Q) and viscoelastic wave-propagation theory

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1752–1833

Adrien-Marie Legendre

Researcher

💡 Method of least squares (1805); Legendre polynomials; Legendre transformation

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1861–1928

Emil Wiechert

Researcher

💡 Wiechert seismograph and first continuous global seismic recording; discovery of the Earth's core-mantle structure