CO₂ monitoring at the CaMI Field Research Station - update

Donald C. Lawton, Greg Maidment, Allan Châtenay, Celina Giersz, Amine Ourabah, Marie Macquet, Malcolm B. Bertram, Kevin L. Bertram

The Containment and Monitoring Institute of Carbon Management Canada collaborates with CREWES on several aspects of monitoring of CO₂ storage at a Field Research Station (CaMI.FRS) in southern Alberta. An important role of CaMI.FRS is also to provide a field opportunity to test new seismic and other monitoring technologies for general purposes but also for monitoring CO₂ storage. In the summer of 2021, an ultra-high-density 3D surface seismic program was recorded at the site in a partnership between Explor, STRYDE and CMC, with CREWES staff also contributing personnel to the acquisition program. The purpose of the acquisition program was to evaluate the viability of using ultra-high-density surface sampling to improve imaging and detection of reservoir characteristics at the site and to aid future designs of 4D time lapse surveys at this and other sites. A total of 19,872 STRYDE nodes were deployed on a 7.5 x 7.5 m grid over an area of 1 km x 1 km into which 9,041 shots were recorded using a new proprietary seismic Explor source (PinPoint). In addition to 3,910 records obtained using the University of Calgary Envirovibe source, making this arguably the highest trace density of a land 3D survey ever recorded. The processing of the data is continuing, the main processing challenge being generally a high level of noise observed in data. However, initial results are very promising for imaging the full sedimentary section at CaMI.FRS, including the CO₂ injection zone.