02-11-99 Exxon Corporation has announced that it received the prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) for the invention and development of 3-D seismic exploration. Dan Mendell, president of Exxon Production Research Company, accepted the award at the SEG annual meeting in Houston.
The SEG, an international professional society representing 15,000 geophysicists in 50 countries, has presented the Distinguished Achievement Award only 10 times in its 69-year history. Exxon is the first oil company to receive the award.
The SEG recognised 3-D seismic exploration as the most important geophysical innovation in the past 30 years. Three-D seismic technology has revolutionised industry's search for oil and gas by providing detailed 3-D images of geologic formations beneath the earth's surface. The technology has greatly increased drilling success during all phases of oil and gas exploration and development.
Exxon Production Research began work on a 3-D seismic system in 1963. After extensive research and development, the 3-D seismic method was presented by Exxon at the 1970 SEG annual meeting and published in the SEG journal Geophysics in June 1972. Many exploration and production projects rely upon 3-D seismic exploration technology to assess prospects and optimally position wells.

Exxon is one of a few oil companies to conduct major exploration and production research activities. The company's current seismic processing research is focused on high-end methods, an area in which it pioneered the use of massively parallel computers for processing 3-D seismic data.