Geocenter Danmark has received DKK 20 million from the A.P. Moller Foundation for the purchase of land seismic equipment, such as special trucks, seismic vibrators and geophones. The new equipment will make it possible to obtain better data from the subsoil in Denmark, and will ensure future geotechnical research, benefitting the green transition.
“The grant from the A.P. Moller Foundation makes it possible for us to buy equipment that will enable us to really advance efforts within the green transition, e.g. underground storage of CO2, geothermal energy and energy storage. We have lacked the tools to acquire the necessary data,” says Nina Skaarup, Head of Department of Geophysics and Sedimentary Basins at GEUS.
Denmark does not currently have the equipment to carry out the necessary land seismic surveys. When surveys are planned, equipment and technicians are rented in e.g. Poland and Sweden. This is expensive and requires a great deal of coordination work. With the grant from the A.P. Moller Foundation, this will soon be a thing of the past.
“A seismic survey on land is carried out with small trucks, which emit vibrations that are reflected by the layers in the subsoil and picked up by geophones, a sort of microphone, placed on and next to the road where the trucks drive. The data generated by the seismic survey provide a detailed picture of the geological structures of the subsoil, and thus the data show whether the subsoil is suitable for e.g. CO2 storage, geothermal energy and energy storage,” explains Nina Skaarup.