Yousef, BM, Almarzooq, H, Angus, DA et al. (1 more author) (2017) Fracture parameter inversion from passive seismic shear-wave splitting: A validation study using full-waveform numerical synthetics. Tectonophysics, 712-71. pp. 736-746. ISSN 0040-1951
Abstract
Fractures are pervasive features within the Earth's crust and they have a significant influence on the multi-physical response of the subsurface. The presence of coherent fracture sets often leads to observable seismic anisotropy enabling seismic techniques to remotely locate and characterise fracture systems. Since fractures play a critical role in the geomechanical and fluid-flow response, there has been significant interest in quantitatively imaging in situ fractures for improved hydro-mechanical modelling. In this study we assess the robustness of inverting for fracture properties using shear-wave splitting measurements. We show that it is feasible to invert shear-wave splitting measurements to quantitatively estimate fracture strike and fracture density assuming an effective medium fracture model. Although the SWS results themselves are diagnostic of fracturing, the fracture inversion allows placing constraints on the physical properties of the fracture system. For the single seismic source case and optimum receiver array geometry, the inversion for strike has average errors of between 11° and 25°, whereas for density has average errors between 65% and 80% for the single fracture set and 30% and 90% for the double fracture sets. For real microseismic datasets, the range in magnitude of microseismicity (i.e., frequency content), spatial distribution and variable source mechanisms suggests that the inversion of fracture properties from SWS measurements is feasible.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Tectonophysics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Explicit fractures; Finite-difference; Fracture inversion; Full-waveform synthetics; Shear-wave splitting |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Institute for Applied Geosciences (IAG) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/K021869/1 EPSRC EP/K035878/1 NERC NE/L000423/1 EPSRC EP/K035878/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Jun 2017 12:25 |
Last Modified: | 01 Jul 2018 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.tecto.2017.06.034 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118391 |