Abstract

The contributions of global navigation satellite systems, such as the GPS, for source & receiver positioning and timing are highlighted. While GPS positioning has been used for several decades, the impact of GPS timing on land acquisition is recent (2005). By enabling the time-stamping of all seismic samples in the recorder as well as in the autonomous receiver stations, it offers the possibility to synchronize all elements of a hybrid spread made of cable and cableless segments. The same flexibility is present on the source side as soon as vibrators are able to define by themselves the position and the start time of each shot (T0). By combining these possibilities different acquisition architectures are made available to improve productivity depending on terrain conditions