Elastic Full Waveform Inversion for Locations and Moment Tensors of Microseismic Events

An Elastic Full Waveform Inversion method for estimating locations and moment tensors of microseismic events is presented and applied to a 4C multi-well data set of production induced microseismic activity from an existing field (Middle East). The algorithm minimizes differences between observed and synthetic elastic (P+S) vector waveforms in order to determine event coordinates and fault angles. It is shown to provide more accurate solutions when compared to conventional ray-based algorithms. The improved link to geomechanical modeling is seen as key to the future realization of reservoir management value from the microseismic technology.