Viridien
French company

Viridien (VIRI), formerly CGG, is a multinational technology, digital and Earth data company, specializing in solving complex natural resource, energy transition and infrastructure challenges.
History
In 1926, Conrad Schlumberger, and his brother Marcel Schlumberger, formed Société de Prospection Electrique (SPE) which specialized in oil and coal exploration as well as civil engineering.
In March 1931, SPE and Société Géophysique de Recherches Minières (SGRM), both specialists in seismology and magnetometry, merged into La Compagnie Générale de Géophysique (CGG). SGRM provided 5,000,000 francs of capital and CGG provided 120,000 francs of capital. In his premises at 30 rue Fabert, in Paris, Conrad Schlumberger decided to transfer the subsurface business to CGG while SPE retained the logging. Marcel Champin was Chairman and Conrad Schlumberger was Vice-Chairman. At the same time, Raymond Maillet from SGRM was appointed President of CGG.
In 1954, CGG acquired its first IBM 604 computer and an MT4 analog computing center for processing field data.
In 1958, CGG completed its first dual-vessel marine survey with one source vessel.
In 1966, CGG opened its first seismic data processing center in Massy, France.
In 1971, CGG started 3D marine seismic exploration with wide-line profiling .
The public source identifies “Viridien” as french company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Viridien, French and company.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2931412. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 1931, 1954 and 1958.
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This entry incorporates text from “Viridien” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.