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Abstract

Summary

We investigate the use of synthetic seismic imaging for safe hydrogen storage in salt caverns, focusing on detecting intra-salt structures. Hydrogen storage in salt caverns, derived from halite’s favorable properties such as low permeability, high solubility, and inert chemical behavior, remains critical to balancing energy production and demand fluctuations from renewable energy sources like wind. However, challenges arise from intra-salt features, including brittle carbonate-anhydrite and highly soluble K-Mg salts, which can compromise cavern stability. Velocity and density for the acoustic models were derived from analogue modeling experiments. A wide-azimuth (WAZ) seismic acquisition scheme is proposed. Initial imaging results, derived through pre-stack depth reverse-time migration, demonstrate WAZ’s superiority in reducing noise and improving the detection of internal salt structures compared to a narrow-azimuth (NAZ) geometry. This work contributes to optimizing seismic acquisition for safer salt cavern development.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.202521148
2025-10-27
2026-01-13
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References

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