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Geologically Driven Inversion of Magnetotelluric Data – An Example from the Bolivian Foothills
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 81st EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2019, Jun 2019, Volume 2019, p.1 - 5
Abstract
Summary
Oil and gas exploration in foothill areas is challenged by several factors making both exploration and development far more expensive. In thrust-belt areas, seismic imaging techniques are negatively affected by the generally poor signal-to-noise ratio of the reflections due to the steep topography and to the almost vertical layering of the formations.
The magnetotelluric (MT) method has been successfully used as a complementary tool in the exploration of foothill plays but its intrinsic non-uniqueness and its lack of structural fidelity could limit the amount of useful information that can be retrieved by the methodology.
We present an alternative approach to the inversion of MT data that progressively assimilate the a priori structural and geological information into the resistivity model. The proposed method tries to maximize, simultaneously, the data-fit and the structural fidelity: the structural fidelity is defined, in a least-square sense, as the similarity between the current resistivity model and the “guiding model” which expresses and synthesizes the a priori knowledge.
The capabilities of the technique are demonstrated on a real MT dataset acquired in the Bolivian foothills.
© EAGE Publications BV