Anyone commissioning a seismic exploration survey must lodge the results with the Dutch government if required to do so. This relates to signal, navigation and velocity data (see Section 11, Paragraph 1 of the Mining Regulations that are part of the Mining Act). A distinction is made in this exploration research between 2D and 3D seismics.

Two-dimensional seismics, which has the longest tradition in the oil industry, generates vibrations along a line on the earth's surface. The vibrations that reflect on planes on the earth's crust are registered by geophones and geohydrophones. However, the propagation of the vibrations does not always occur exactly in the vertical plane under the line of registration. Therefore, the representation of geological structures in the 2D-seismic section is only an approximation of reality.

Three-dimensional seismics provides a much more authentic picture. This technique places a large number of registration lines next to each other on a relatively small surface area. Modern processing enables correction for raypaths outside the vertical plane beneath the individual lines of registration. This provides an rather accurate representation of the geological structures in the survey area.

The introduction of the Mining Act on 1 January 2003 released all onshore 2D and 3D seismic surveys prior to 1 January 1993 for the public. This concerns a total of 513 2D seismic surveys and 298 3D seismic surveys. All 3D data and around three per cent of the 2D signal data are available digitally in the TNO-NITG archive.

Before the data becomes accessible via DINOShop, TNO-NITG checks the quality of the database, so not all the data can be supplied equally fast. DINOShop shows the metadata, like name, position, length or file size and price of the surveys. The user can order the data he requires on the basis of this information.

Surveys are always released on 1 January each year.

Please select a datatype at the home page if you want to request data.