Comment on “Benefits of the induced polarization geoelectric method to hydrocarbon exploration” ()

Abstract

We have read Veeken et al. (2009) with interest and congratulate the authors for much careful hard work. However, we would like to bring to the authors’ attention several technical issues and point out several relevant earlier publications that they have overlooked, including five in GEOPHYSICS . The authors indicate that they used parallel streamers — separate transmitter and receiver arrays — in their sea trials. In our experience, separate parallel streamers do not move in rigid angular or spacing distance from each other, and these relative variations contribute a complex low-frequency electrical noise that lies broadly in the induced-polarization (IP) response range for pyrite described in Zonge and Wynn (1975), Pelton et al. (1978), and Veeken et al. (2009, p. B50). It is not clear to us that the authors removed or corrected for this substantial broadband noise contribution.