Farcture Mapping by Diffraction Imaging

The main objective of imaging diffracted arrivals is to produce high resolution seismic sections in time or depth, which in turn will enhance the interpretation of fault edges, pinchouts, reef edges, fracture zones and other geologic discontinuities. In naturally fractured reservoirs a detailed understanding and mapping of the subsurface fracture network is often necessary to optimize field development plans. There is a variety of seismic driven technologies that attempt to map and detect fracture zones. For example, by analyzing seismic anisotropy one can obtain preferential fracture orientation, generating volume and/or horizon based extracted attributes potential fracture corridors can be identified and mapped. For the past two decades numerous authors (Landa et al., 1987, Kanasewich and Phadke, 1988, Khaidukov et al., 2004, Fomel et al., 2007, Moser and Howard, 2008 and Reshef and Landa, 2008) have conducted research on diffraction imaging and its associated super-resolution, post-stack velocity analysis in the dip-angle domain and separating and focusing only diffracted energy. All of the above methodologies aim first to differentiate reflections from diffractions and second to obtain higher resolution seismic images by imaging, primarily, diffracted arrivals.