Three decades of reflection seismic surveying at Neves-Corvo, Portugal

Summary The Neves-Corvo is arguably the largest and one of the most important volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide (VMS) endowments in the world. In the last three decades three seismic acquisition programs have been carried out in the area. In 1996, six profiles covering the area, with a special interest in the tier-1 Lombador deposit. Reprocessing of this dataset was done in 2019 and showed the relevance of revisiting legacy data using current tailored processing workflows. In 2011, a 24 km2 3D survey was done with the intention of producing new targets and in particular with the discovery of the Semblana deposit in 2010, the 3D dataset showed its potential beyond the earlier 2D surveys. In 2019, new technologies for seismic exploration were tested, the new seismic survey consisted of two perpendicular 2D surface profiles positioned above the known Lombador deposit, additionally source points were activated inside the exploration tunnels and simultaneously recorded on the surface, which provided an improved velocity model for migration and time-to-depth conversion. The objective of this study is to provide an overview of these surveys and present the latest results of revisiting the 2011 3D seismic data.