Seismic characterization of fractured reservoirs by focusing Gaussian beams
Name
Zheng_Seismic-characterization.pdf
Size
1.71 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
4c6dc9473bdb68ff39f7f52b39e8d249
Author(s)
Zheng, Yingcai
Fang, Xinding
Fehler, Michael
Burns, Daniel R
Date Issued
June 2013
Journal
Geophysics
Publisher
Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Citation
Zheng, Yingcai, Xinding Fang, Michael C. Fehler, and Daniel R. Burns. “Seismic characterization of fractured reservoirs by focusing Gaussian beams.” GEOPHYSICS 78, no. 4 (June 11, 2013): A23-A28. © 2013 Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Naturally fractured reservoirs occur worldwide, and they account for the bulk of global oil production. The most important impact of fractures is their influence on fluid flow. To maximize oil production, the characterization of a fractured reservoir at the scale of an oil field is very important. For fluid transport, the critical parameters are connectivity and transmittivity plus orientation. These can be related to fracture spacing, compliance, and orientation, which are the critical seismic parameters of rock physics models. We discovered a new seismic technique that can invert for the spatially dependent fracture orientation, spacing, and compliance, using surface seismic data. Unlike most seismic methods that rely on using singly scattered/diffracted waves whose signal-to-noise ratios are usually very low, we found that waves multiply scattered by fractures can be energetic. The direction information of the fracture multiply scattered waves contains fracture orientation and spacing information, and the amplitude of these waves gives the compliance. Our algorithm made use of the interference of two true-amplitude Gaussian beams emitted from surface source and receiver arrays that are extrapolated downward and focused on fractured reservoir targets. The double beam interference pattern provides information about the three fracture parameters. We performed a blind test on our methodology. A 3D model with two sets of orthogonal fractures was built, and a 3D staggered finite-difference method using the Schoenberg linear-slip boundary condition for fractures was used to generate the synthetic surface seismic data set. The test results showed that we were able to not only invert for the fracture orientation and spacing, but also the compliance field.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earth Resources Laboratory
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1190/geo2012-0512.1
