Re-processing and interpretation of 2D seismic data from the Kristineberg mining area, northern Sweden

The Kristineberg mining area in the western part of the Skellefte ore district, northern Sweden, contains the largest massive sulphide deposit in the district. In 2003, two parallel seismic lines, Profiles 1 and 5, each about 25 km long and about 8 km apart were acquired in the Kristineberg area. The initial processing results were successful in imaging the large-scale structures of the area down to 12 km of the crust, but resulted in relatively poor seismic image near the mine. In this paper, we re-processed the seismic data along Profile 1 that crosses the mine. The main objective was to improve the seismic section near the mine for further correlation with new seismic data recently acquired in the area. The crooked-line acquisition geometry, very low fold coverage of less than 17, complex geology and sparse outcrops in the area made the data re-processing and interpretation challenging. Despite these challenges, significant improvement is observed in the seismic data, in terms of event continuity and resolution. Refraction static corrections allowed high frequencies to be retained, which improved the seismic section. The refraction static solution was manually checked and adjusted at every iteration to avoid unstable solutions. 3D visualization of the re-processed data with other seismic profiles recently acquired in the area allowed the seismic reflections to be correlated. The majority of the reflections are interpreted to originate from either fault zones or lithological contacts. A very shallow reflection correlates well with the location of the Kristineberg mineralized horizon. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.