- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Geophysical Prospecting
- Previous Issues
- Volume 60, Issue 2, 2012
Geophysical Prospecting - Volume 60, Issue 2, 2012
Volume 60, Issue 2, 2012
-
-
Estimation of geological dip and curvature from time‐migrated zero‐offset reflections in heterogeneous anisotropic media
Authors Martin Tygel, Bjørn Ursin, Einar Iversen and Maarten V. de HoopABSTRACTStarting from a given time‐migrated zero‐offset data volume and time‐migration velocity, recent literature has shown that it is possible to simultaneously trace image rays in depth and reconstruct the depth‐velocity model along them. This, in turn, allows image‐ray migration, namely to map time‐migrated reflections into depth by tracing the image ray until half of the reflection time is consumed. As known since the 1980s, image‐ray migration can be made more complete if, besides reflection time, also estimates of its first and second derivatives with respect to the time‐migration datum coordinates are available. Such information provides, in addition to the location and dip of the reflectors in depth, also an estimation of their curvature. The expressions explicitly relate geological dip and curvature to first and second derivatives of reflection time with respect to time‐migration datum coordinates. Such quantitative relationships can provide useful constraints for improved construction of reflectors at depth in the presence of uncertainty. Furthermore, the results of image‐ray migration can be used to verify and improve time‐migration algorithms and can therefore be considered complementary to those of normal‐ray migration. So far, image‐ray migration algorithms have been restricted to layered models with isotropic smooth velocities within the layers. Using the methodology of surface‐to‐surface paraxial matrices, we obtain a natural extension to smooth or layered anisotropic media.
-
-
-
Deconvolution of multicomponent seismic data by means of quaternions: Theory and preliminary results‡
Authors Giovanni M. Menanno and Alfredo MazzottiABSTRACTMulticomponent seismic data are acquired by orthogonal geophones that record a vectorial wavefield. Since the single components are not independent, the processing should be performed jointly for all the components.
In this contribution, we use hypercomplex numbers, specifically quaternions, to implement the Wiener deconvolution for multicomponent seismic data. This new approach directly derives from the complex Wiener filter theory, but special care must be taken in the algorithm implementation due to the peculiar properties of quaternion algebra.
Synthetic and real data examples show that quaternion deconvolution, either spiking or predictive, generally performs superiorly to the standard (scalar) deconvolution because it properly takes into account the vectorial nature of the wavefields. This provides a better wavelet estimation and thus an improved deconvolution performance, especially when noise affects differently the various components.
-
-
-
Seismic time‐lapse effects of solution salt mining – a feasibility study
Authors Guy Drijkoningen, Guus van Noort, Rob Arts, Joren Bullen and Jan ThorbeckeABSTRACTThis article addresses the question whether time‐lapse seismic reflection techniques can be used to follow and quantify the effects of solution salt mining. Specifically, the production of magnesium salts as mined in the north of the Netherlands is considered. The use of seismic time‐lapse techniques to follow such a production has not previously been investigated. For hydrocarbon production and CO2 storage, time‐lapse seismics are used to look at reservoir changes mainly caused by pressure and saturation changes in large reservoirs, while for solution mining salt is produced from caverns with a limited lateral extent, with much smaller production volumes and a fluid (brine) replacing a solid (magnesium salt).
In our approach we start from the present situation of the mine and then study three different production scenarios, representing salt production both in vertical and lateral directions of the mine. The present situation and future scenarios have been transformed into subsurface models that were input to an elastic finite‐difference scheme to create synthetic seismic data. These data have been analysed and processed up to migrated seismic images, such that time‐lapse analyses of intermediate and final results could be done.
From the analyses, it is found that both vertical and lateral production is visible well above the detection threshold in difference data, both at pre‐imaging and post‐imaging stages. In quantitative terms, an additional production of the mine of 6 m causes time‐shifts in the order of 2 ms (pre‐imaging) and 4 ms (post‐imaging) and amplitude changes of above 20% in the imaged sections. A laterally oriented production causes even larger amplitude changes at the edge of the cavern due to replacement of solid magnesium salt with brine introducing a large seismic contrast. Overall, our pre‐imaging and post‐imaging time‐lapse analysis indicates that the effects of solution salt mining can be observed and quantified on seismic data. The effects seem large enough to be observable in real seismic data containing noise.
-
-
-
Handling dip discrimination phenomenon in common‐reflection‐surface stack via combination of output‐imaging‐scheme and migration/demigration
Authors Kai Yang, Bao‐shu Chen, Xiao‐jiang Wang, Xiao‐chun Yang and Jun‐rong LiuABSTRACTIn the application of a conventional common‐reflection‐surface (CRS) stack, it is well‐known that only one optimum stacking operator is determined for each zero‐offset sample to be simulated. As a result, the conflicting dip situations are not taken into account and only the most prominent event contributes to any a particular stack sample. In this paper, we name this phenomenon caused by conflicting dip problems as ‘dip discrimination phenomenon’. This phenomenon is not welcome because it not only leads to the loss of weak reflections and tips of diffractions in the final zero‐offset‐CRS stacked section but also to a deteriorated quality in subsequent migration.
The common‐reflection‐surface stack with the output imaging scheme (CRS‐OIS) is a novel technique to implement a CRS stack based on a unified Kirchhoff imaging approach. As far as dealing with conflicting dip problems is concerned, the CRS‐OIS is a better option than a conventional CRS stack. However, we think the CRS‐OIS can do more in this aspect. In this paper, we propose a workflow to handle the dip discrimination phenomenon based on a cascaded implementation of prestack time migration, CRS‐OIS and prestack time demigration. Firstly, a common offset prestack time migration is implemented. Then, a CRS‐OIS is applied to the time‐migrated common offset gather. Afterwards, a prestack time demigration is performed to reconstruct each unmigrated common offset gather with its reflections being greatly enhanced and diffractions being well preserved.
Compared with existing techniques dealing with conflicting dip problems, the technique presented in this paper preserves most of the diffractions and accounts for reflections from all possible dips properly. More importantly, both the post‐stacked data set and prestacked data set can be of much better quality after the implementation of the presented scheme. It serves as a promising alternative to other techniques except that it cannot provide the typical CRS wavefield attributes. The numerical tests on a synthetic Marmousi data set and a real 2D marine data set demonstrated its effectiveness and robustness.
-
-
-
Estimation and application of near‐surface full waveform redatuming operators
Authors Peter Haffinger and Eric VerschuurABSTRACTLand seismic data quality can be severely affected by near‐surface anomalies. The imprint of a complex near‐surface can be removed by redatuming the data to a level below the surface, from where the subsurface structures are assumed to be relatively smooth. However, to derive a velocity‐depth model that explains the propagation effects of the near‐surface is a non‐trivial task. Therefore, an alternative approach has been proposed, where the redatuming operators are obtained in a data‐driven manner from the reflection event related to the datum. In the current implementation, the estimation of these redatuming operators is done in terms of traveltimes only, based on a high‐frequency approximation. The accompanying amplitudes are usually derived from a local homogeneous medium, which is obviously a simplification of reality. Such parametrization has produced encouraging results in the past but cannot completely remove the near‐surface complexities, leaving artefacts in the redatumed results. In this paper we propose a method that estimates the redatuming operators directly from the data, i.e., without using a velocity model, in a full waveform manner, such that detailed amplitude and phase variations are included. The method directly outputs the inverse propagation operators that are needed for true‐amplitude redatuming. Based on 2D synthetic data it is demonstrated that the resulting redatuming quality is improved and artefacts are reduced.
-
-
-
Analytical approximations of bulk and shear moduli for dry rock based on the differential effective medium theory
Authors Hongbing Li and Jiajia ZhangABSTRACTDifferential effective medium theory has been applied to determine the elastic properties of porous media. The ordinary differential equations for bulk and shear moduli are coupled and it is more difficult to obtain accurate analytical formulae about the moduli of dry porous rock. In this paper, in order to decouple these equations we first substitute an analytical approximation for the dry‐rock modulus ratio into the differential equation and derive analytical solutions of the bulk and shear moduli for dry rock with three specific pore shapes: spherical pores, needle‐shaped pores and penny‐shaped cracks. Then, the validity of the analytical approximations is tested by integrating the full differential effective medium equation numerically. The analytical formulae give good estimates of the numerical results over the whole porosity range for the cases of the three given pore shapes. These analytical formulae can be further simplified under the assumption of small porosity. The simplified formulae for spherical pores are the same as Mackenzie's equations. The analytical formulae are relatively easy to analyse the relationship between the elastic moduli and porosity or pore shapes and can be used to invert some rock parameters such as porosity or pore aspect ratio. The predictions of the analytical formulae for experimental data show that the formulae for penny‐shaped cracks are suitable to estimate the elastic properties of micro‐crack rock such as granite, they can be used to estimate the crack aspect ratio while the crack porosity is known and also to estimate the crack porosity evolution with pressure if the crack aspect ratio is given.
-
-
-
Direct correlation of 4D seismic with well activity for a clarified dynamic reservoir interpretation
Authors Yi Huang and Colin MacBethABSTRACTA method to provide an improved time‐lapse seismic attribute for dynamic interpretation is presented. This is based on the causal link between the time‐lapse seismic response and well production activity taken over time. The resultant image is obtained by computing correlation coefficients between sequences of time‐lapse seismic changes extracted over different time intervals from multiply repeated seismic and identical time sequences of cumulative fluid volumes produced or injected from the wells. Maps of these cross‐correlations show localized, spatially contiguous signals surrounding individual wells or a specific well group. These may be associated with connected regions around the selected well or well group. Application firstly to a synthetic data set reveals that hydraulic compartments may be delineated using this method. A second application to a field data set provides empirical evidence that a connected well‐centric fault block and active geobody can be detected. It is concluded that uniting well data and time‐lapse seismic using our proposed method delivers a new attribute for dynamic interpretation and potential updating of the model for the producing reservoir.
-
-
-
Inversion of potential field data using the structural index as weighting function rate decay
Authors Federico Cella and Maurizio FediABSTRACTNonparametric inverse methods provide a general framework for solving potential‐field problems. The use of weighted norms leads to a general regularization problem of Tikhonov form. We present an alternative procedure to estimate the source susceptibility distribution from potential field measurements exploiting inversion methods by means of a flexible depth‐weighting function in the Tikhonov formulation. Our approach improves the formulation proposed by Li and Oldenburg (1996, 1998), differing significantly in the definition of the depth‐weighting function.
In our formalism the depth weighting function is associated not to the field decay of a single block (which can be representative of just a part of the source) but to the field decay of the whole source, thus implying that the data inversion is independent on the cell shape. So, in our procedure, the depth‐weighting function is not given with a fixed exponent but with the structural index N of the source as the exponent. Differently than previous methods, our choice gives a substantial objectivity to the form of the depth‐weighting function and to the consequent solutions. The allowed values for the exponent of the depth‐weighting function depend on the range of N for sources: 0 ≤N≤ 3 (magnetic case). The analysis regarding the cases of simple sources such as dipoles, dipole lines, dykes or contacts, validate our hypothesis. The study of a complex synthetic case also proves that the depth‐weighting decay cannot be necessarily assumed as equal to 3. Moreover it should not be kept constant for multi‐source models but should instead depend on the structural indices of the different sources. In this way we are able to successfully invert the magnetic data of the Vulture area, Southern Italy. An original aspect of the proposed inversion scheme is that it brings an explicit link between two widely used types of interpretation methods, namely those assuming homogeneous fields, such as Euler deconvolution or depth from extreme points transformation and the inversion under the Tikhonov‐form including a depth‐weighting function. The availability of further constraints, from drillings or known geology, will definitely improve the quality of the solution.
-
-
-
The application of spatial derivatives to non‐potential field data interpretation
More LessABSTRACTSource/body edge detection is a common feature in the processing and interpretation of potential field data sets. A wide range of spatial derivatives is available to enhance the information contained in the basic data. Here the ability of these procedures to assist with the mapping interpretation of non‐potential field data is considered. The study uses airborne electromagnetic (conductivity) data but also provides a general context for other conductivity/resistivity data, provided the non‐potential field nature of active and thus spatially‐focused, measurements is acknowledged. The study discusses and demonstrates the application of a range of common spatial derivative procedures, including the analytic signal and upward continuation, to both magnetic and conductivity data. The ability of the tilt derivative to provide enhanced mapping of conductivity data is considered in detail. Tilt and its associated functions are formed by taking combinations of vertical and horizontal derivatives of the data set. Theoretical forward modelling studies are first carried out to assess the performance of the tilt derivative in relation to the detection and definition of concealed conductivity structure. The tilt derivative embodies automatic gain control that normalizes the detection and definition of both weak and strong conductivity gradients across an appropriate subsurface depth range. The use of high‐order spatial derivatives inevitably results in a degree of noise (cultural perturbation) amplification that is survey and technique specific. Both of these aspects are considered using practical case studies of jointly obtained magnetic and conductivity data at a variety of spatial scales.
-
-
-
Absolute airborne gravimetry: a feasibility study
Authors H. Baumann, E.E. Klingelé and I. MarsonABSTRACTWe report here the results obtained during a feasibility study that was pursued in order to evaluate the performances of absolute airborne gravimetry. In contrast to relative systems, which use spring‐type gravimeters, each measurement acquired by absolute systems is independent from the others and the instrument is not suffering from problems like instrumental drift, frequency response of the spring and variation of the calibration factor. After a validation of the dynamic performance of the experimental setup in a moving truck, a comparison between the experimental airborne data retrieved over the Swiss Alps and those obtained by ground upward continuation at flight altitude allow us to state that airborne absolute gravimetry is feasible. The first test flight shows a spatial resolution comparable to those obtained by relative airborne gravimetry. For a wavelength on the order of 12 km the absolute value of gravity can be evaluated with an uncertainty of 6.9 mGal.
-
-
-
Break through the limits of vibroseis data quality
Authors Zhouhong Wei and Thomas F. PhillipsABSTRACTThe vibroseis method has become the principal data acquisition method in land seismic exploration. It seems that this method has been extended to its limits as the search for energy resources continues. Many practical issues arising from field operations have remained theoretically unexplained, for example, variations in wavelet arrival time, inaccurate wavelet estimation and harmonics in the wavelet itself. The focus of this paper is the proposal of a new model, which is referred to as the vibrator‐coupled ground model, to simulate the filtering effects of a complex coupling system consisting of the coupling between the baseplate and the ground as well as the coupling between the captured ground mass near the vibrator baseplate and the surrounding earth. With this vibrator‐coupled ground model many of the practical issues mentioned above were reasonably addressed. Furthermore, it was demonstrated from experimental tests that both the pilot sweep and the weighted‐sum groundforce, when filtered by the vibrator‐coupled ground model, are proportional to the far‐field particle velocity whereas the unfiltered signals are not. The harmonics on the filtered weighted‐sum groundforce successfully maintain a proportional relationship with the harmonics seen in the far‐field signal.
-
Volumes & issues
-
Volume 72 (2023 - 2024)
-
Volume 71 (2022 - 2023)
-
Volume 70 (2021 - 2022)
-
Volume 69 (2021)
-
Volume 68 (2020)
-
Volume 67 (2019)
-
Volume 66 (2018)
-
Volume 65 (2017)
-
Volume 64 (2015 - 2016)
-
Volume 63 (2015)
-
Volume 62 (2014)
-
Volume 61 (2013)
-
Volume 60 (2012)
-
Volume 59 (2011)
-
Volume 58 (2010)
-
Volume 57 (2009)
-
Volume 56 (2008)
-
Volume 55 (2007)
-
Volume 54 (2006)
-
Volume 53 (2005)
-
Volume 52 (2004)
-
Volume 51 (2003)
-
Volume 50 (2002)
-
Volume 49 (2001)
-
Volume 48 (2000)
-
Volume 47 (1999)
-
Volume 46 (1998)
-
Volume 45 (1997)
-
Volume 44 (1996)
-
Volume 43 (1995)
-
Volume 42 (1994)
-
Volume 41 (1993)
-
Volume 40 (1992)
-
Volume 39 (1991)
-
Volume 38 (1990)
-
Volume 37 (1989)
-
Volume 36 (1988)
-
Volume 35 (1987)
-
Volume 34 (1986)
-
Volume 33 (1985)
-
Volume 32 (1984)
-
Volume 31 (1983)
-
Volume 30 (1982)
-
Volume 29 (1981)
-
Volume 28 (1980)
-
Volume 27 (1979)
-
Volume 26 (1978)
-
Volume 25 (1977)
-
Volume 24 (1976)
-
Volume 23 (1975)
-
Volume 22 (1974)
-
Volume 21 (1973)
-
Volume 20 (1972)
-
Volume 19 (1971)
-
Volume 18 (1970)
-
Volume 17 (1969)
-
Volume 16 (1968)
-
Volume 15 (1967)
-
Volume 14 (1966)
-
Volume 13 (1965)
-
Volume 12 (1964)
-
Volume 11 (1963)
-
Volume 10 (1962)
-
Volume 9 (1961)
-
Volume 8 (1960)
-
Volume 7 (1959)
-
Volume 6 (1958)
-
Volume 5 (1957)
-
Volume 4 (1956)
-
Volume 3 (1955)
-
Volume 2 (1954)
-
Volume 1 (1953)