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Oil Prospecting by Computer

Victoria University's Research School of Earth Sciences has become the site of New Zealand's only university computer facility able to process and model seismic data for the petroleum exploration industry.

Oil exploration company NZ Oil and Gas contributed $50,000 towards the cost of the computer hardware, and SierraGeophysics has donated much of its world-leading software to run the system. Under the joint arrangement, NZ Oil and Gas will share use of the system, which will also be used as a deomonstration centre for others interested in New Zealand oil exploration.

The system enables scientists to produce and interpret screen images of underlying geological structures on the basis of seismic data obtained by such methods as detonating explosives on the Earth's surface. It's extremely fast and enables the user to modify and interact with the process.

Staff and research students will use it mainly as a research tool for processing and interpreting seismic data from New Zealand and Antarctica, and project co-ordinator Dr Tim Stern hopes that the facility will attract top postgraduate petroleum and geophysics researchers to Victoria.

"It certainly isn't intended that we should set ourselves up doing processing in competition with commercial sites round the world," says Stern, "but if students can do the odd small-scale paid job on a specific problem that's fine."