Numerical Modeling of Anisotropic Elastic-Wave Sensitivity Propagation for Optimal Design of Time-Lapse Seismic Surveys

Numerical Modeling of Anisotropic Elastic-Wave Sensitivity Propagation for Optimal Design of Time-Lapse Seismic Surveys

Year:    2020

Author:    Kai Gao, Lianjie Huang

Communications in Computational Physics, Vol. 28 (2020), Iss. 1 : pp. 442–458

Abstract

Reliable subsurface time-lapse seismic monitoring is crucial for many geophysical applications, such as enhanced geothermal system characterization, geologic carbon utilization and storage, and conventional and unconventional oil/gas reservoir characterization, etc. We develop an elastic-wave sensitivity propagation method for optimal design of cost-effective time-lapse seismic surveys considering the fact that most of subsurface geologic layers and fractured reservoirs are anisotropic instead of isotropic. For anisotropic media, we define monitoring criteria using qP- and qS-wave sensitivity energies after decomposing qP- and qS-wave components from the total elastic-wave sensitivity wavefield using a hybrid time- and frequency-domain approach. Geophones should therefore be placed at locations with significant qP- and qS-wave sensitivity energies for cost-effective time-lapse seismic monitoring in an anisotropic geology setting. Our numerical modeling results for a modified anisotropic Hess model demonstrate that, compared with the isotropic case, subsurface anisotropy changes the spatial distributions of elastic-wave sensitivity energies. Consequently, it is necessary to consider subsurface anisotropies when designing the spatial distribution of geophones for cost-effective time-lapse seismic monitoring. This finding suggests that it is essential to use our new anisotropic elastic-wave sensitivity modeling method for optimal design of time-lapse seismic surveys to reliably monitor the changes in subsurface reservoirs, fracture zones or target monitoring regions.

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Journal Article Details

Publisher Name:    Global Science Press

Language:    English

DOI:    https://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.OA-2018-0192

Communications in Computational Physics, Vol. 28 (2020), Iss. 1 : pp. 442–458

Published online:    2020-01

AMS Subject Headings:    Global Science Press

Copyright:    COPYRIGHT: © Global Science Press

Pages:    17

Keywords:    Anisotropy elastic-wave sensitivity time-lapse seismic monitoring.

Author Details

Kai Gao

Lianjie Huang

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