Seismic Soundoff

“If you keep training on what people have already discovered and what’s already been identified, then you’re gonna be limited in what you can actually come up with.”

AI is very good at finding patterns in seismic data. The harder question is whether those patterns make geological sense.

Nancy House remembers looking at a Gulf of Mexico seismic line after years of working in an overthrust regime and initially seeing a thrust fault. It wasn’t. Her regional experience had shaped what she saw. That is exactly the kind of mistake AI can make if pattern recognition gets separated from geological context.

Nancy connects that problem to two years of work with the GeoGPT governance committee, where the questions are just as unsettled: what knowledge trains these systems, how proprietary data is protected, and who should set the boundaries as the technology keeps changing.

QUESTIONS THIS CONVERSATION ANSWERS
> How can interpreters tell when AI has recognized geology and when it has only recognized a familiar pattern?
> Could training AI on existing interpretations limit the ability to identify genuinely new geologic possibilities?
> What role should professional societies play in governing geoscience AI?

ABOUT SEISMIC SOUNDOFF
Seismic Soundoff showcases conversations addressing the challenges of energy, water, and climate. Produced by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and hosted by Andrew Geary of 51 features, these episodes celebrate and inspire the geophysicists of today and tomorrow. Three new episodes monthly. See the full archive at https://seg.org/resources/podcast/.

“The goal is not cheaper data. The goal is to spend less on everything that does not add value to the decision one is trying to make.”

Low-cost monitoring is becoming less about cheaper sensors and more about designing geophysics around the decision that needs to be made.

Guest editors Erkan Ay and Joël Le Calvez use the The Leading Edge special section, "Low-cost monitoring for oil and gas production and emerging energies" to show what that looks like in practice, from DAS that makes fracture monitoring viable without a dedicated monitoring well to targeted measurements that act as an early-warning system.

Their argument is especially relevant in a tight-budget environment. Monitoring can become more routine and accessible, but only if geophysicists measure the right physics, automate intelligently, and remember that data itself is not the product. Decisions are.

Read June's The Leading Edge special section at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/tle/issue/45/6.

QUESTIONS THIS CONVERSATION ANSWERS
> How can monitoring shift from repeated full-field imaging to targeted, decision-driven measurements?
> When can DAS and simpler monitoring systems make projects observable that otherwise would go unmonitored?
> Why should monitoring cost be judged by the actionable information it produces rather than acquisition cost alone?

ABOUT SEISMIC SOUNDOFF
Seismic Soundoff showcases conversations addressing the challenges of energy, water, and climate. Produced by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and hosted by Andrew Geary of 51 features, these episodes celebrate and inspire the geophysicists of today and tomorrow. Three new episodes monthly. See the full archive at https://seg.org/resources/podcast/.

“Machine learning over the last few years has become revolutionary. But we still need, and maybe even more so, the constraint and knowledge of rock physics and QI as an integral part of those workflows.”

Stephan Gelinsky describes quantitative interpretation as the place “where science meets business impact.” That idea anchors this conversation with Stephan and Per Avseth, built around the May quantitative interpretation special section of The Leading Edge.

Elastic FWI and machine learning are moving quickly into QI, but both guests argue that better algorithms make rock physics, geology, and judgment more important, not less.

Per also points to a broader challenge. Some students are turning away from reservoir geophysics because they associate it with petroleum, even though the same science is needed for CCS, geothermal, critical minerals, natural hydrogen, and other subsurface problems tied to the energy transition.

The question is not whether QI still matters. It is how the field keeps its physics, communicates uncertainty, and shows the next generation where that science can take them.

Read May's The Leading Edge special section at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/tle/issue/45/5.

QUESTIONS THIS CONVERSATION ANSWERS
> How are elastic FWI and machine learning changing the role of QI specialists?
> What makes a QI result trustworthy enough to support a real decision?
> Why does QI remain foundational to CCS, geothermal, critical minerals, and other energy-transition problems?

ABOUT SEISMIC SOUNDOFF
Seismic Soundoff showcases conversations addressing the challenges of energy, water, and climate. Produced by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and hosted by Andrew Geary of 51 features, these episodes celebrate and inspire the geophysicists of today and tomorrow. Three new episodes monthly. See the full archive at https://seg.org/resources/podcast/.

“We really need to be able to explain in clear language and with vivid examples just what geophysics can do here.”

Michael B. Helgerud and Manika Prasad approach CCUS monitoring from two useful angles: Mike as an operator and Manika as an academic. Using their The Leading Edge special section on geophysics for CCUS as a starting point, they examine what monitoring must prove to operators, regulators, and communities as projects scale.

Mike emphasizes containment, pressure, storage capacity, and fit-for-risk surveillance. Manika points to major gaps in shared calibration data, basin-wide stress models, and especially the willingness to share mistakes and lessons learned.

Together, they argue that better technology alone will not settle the challenge. Geophysicists must combine different measurements more effectively, plan for decades of stewardship, and understand that communities may experience storage risk very differently from the scientists and operators evaluating it.

Read April's The Leading Edge special section at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/tle/issue/45/4.

QUESTIONS THIS CONVERSATION ANSWERS
> What must geophysics demonstrate for operators, regulators, and communities to trust CO2 storage?
> Why is sharing calibration data, mistakes, and lessons learned essential to scaling CCUS monitoring?
> How should monitoring change when CO2 storage must remain secure for decades rather than a single project phase?

ABOUT SEISMIC SOUNDOFF
Seismic Soundoff showcases conversations addressing the challenges of energy, water, and climate. Produced by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and hosted by Andrew Geary of 51 features, these episodes celebrate and inspire the geophysicists of today and tomorrow. Three new episodes monthly. See the full archive at https://seg.org/resources/podcast/.

Geoscience needs more people who can solve problems across energy, water, climate, critical minerals, and the subsurface, yet departments are losing students, funding, and in some cases the field experiences that help build strong geologists.

Esther Oyedele and Dolores van der Kolk discuss what they heard across IMAGE about that disconnect and why solving it will take more than recruitment. Students need to see a wider range of geoscience careers, universities need flexibility without weakening the fundamentals, and industry and professional societies need to help support the training, field work, and access that make those careers possible.

The workforce problem is visible. Many of the solutions are visible too. The question is whether the geoscience community is willing to support them.

Listen to the complete Inside IMAGE Podcast Series at https://www.imageevent.org/podcast.