Low-frequency Induced Anisotropy from a Sand-shale Sequence

A stack of thin sand-shale layers is typical example for vertically heterogeneous models in reservoir characterization. Reliable methods are required to predict the properties on a coarse scale that capture the influence of fine-scale structures. Most of these methods are based on the effective medium theory and require seismic upscaling. The upscaling results in induced seismic anisotropy which is an important property of effective medium. The standard Backus averaging technique (Backus, 1962) used for upscaling has to be applied for the total wavefield and provides the static (zero-frequency limit) properties of the effective medium. In my paper, I define the low-frequency effective medium and compute the frequency-dependent layer-induced anisotropy parameters from the sand-shale finely layers.