Articles
What Does Microseismic Tell Us About Hydraulic Fracture Deformation
Shawn C. Maxwell
With the expansion of microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracture stimulations in the past few years, interest has evolved from simply the event locations to extracting more information from the signals through advanced source characterization. Details about the fracturing and deformation associated with the microseismic source can be investigated using earthquake…
Noise Examples from Two Microseismic Datasets
Andy St-Onge and David W. Eaton
The recording of microseismic surveys can be used to monitor hydraulic fracture stimulation of reservoirs. In these surveys, the continuous recording of three component geophones are used to detect P and S wave energy induced by the fracturing process and related stress changes. This paper presents a number of noise…
Advanced seismic techniques help in characterizing a challenging Jean Marie carbonate play, NE British Columbia, Canada – a Case Study
Dragana Todorovic-Marinic, Satinder Chopra and Mark Edmonds
This paper describes a workflow that was adopted for understanding the porosity and permeability distribution in the Jean Marie carbonate play in British Columbia, Canada. It makes use of some advanced seismic techniques and holds promise of being a robust methodology that has resulted in enhanced deliverability and recovery of…
The Use of 3-component Seismic Data to Identify Sweet Spots in Fractured Bakken Reservoirs
Scott Stockton
In October 2008, Vector acquired and processed an experimental 2D seismic line in Mountrail and Ward Counties ND. In recent years, several operators have been successful drilling long-lateral horizontal wells in the Middle Bakken using surface seismic only loosely for approximate structural control. The efficacy of conventional surface seismic data…
Improvements in microseismic data processing using sparsity and non-linear inversion constraints
Ismael Vera Rodriguez, Dave Bonar and Mauricio Sacchi
This study explores improvements obtained in microseismic data processing through the application of inversion techniques that utilize sparse and non-linear constraints. Specifically, we present a method for de-noising microseismic traces and a method for the automatic time picking of microseismic events. The de-noising method is based on a sparsity constrained…
Synthetic Microseismic Datasets
Joe Wong, Peter M. Manning, Lejia Han, and John C. Bancroft
Microseismic or passive seismic monitoring during hydraulic fracturing processes involves recording 3C seismograms produced by microearthquakes associated with breaking rock. By analyzing the data to locate hypocenters where the breakage occurs, geophysicists enable reservoir engineers to follow the growth and evolution of the fractured rock volume in time and space.…
Fast Search Algorithms for Automatic Localization of Microseismic Events
Ulrich Zimmer and Jeremy Jin
Automatic localization of microseismic events has become an important tool in characterizing formations which generate large numbers of microseisms during hydraulic fracturing, e.g. Horn River shales. Especially for large complex threedimensional velocity models, the automatic processing requires the use of specialized optimization algorithms to locate the events within an acceptable…
Anisotropic PSTM Imaging for Unconventional Reservoirs
Edward Jenner
Exploration and drilling efforts in onshore North America have increasingly moved away from conventional reservoirs and toward unconventional ones. Although advances in drilling technology have been the primary factors in achieving economic viability in these tight reservoirs, 3D seismic data has played an increasingly important role in development success.
... Compressive sensing in seismic exploration: an outlook on a new paradigm
Felix J. Herrmann, Haneet Wason, and Tim T.Y. Lin
Many seismic exploration techniques rely on the collection of massive data volumes that are subsequently mined for information during processing. While this approach has been extremely successful in the past, current efforts toward higher resolution images in increasingly complicated regions of the Earth continue to reveal fundamental shortcomings in our…
The Evolving Role of Geophysics in Exploration. From Amplitudes to Geomechanics
Eric Andersen and David Gray
Over the last 25 years, geophysical analysis of seismic data has greatly evolved. However, in the routine utilization and daily workflows of many exploration and development teams, geophysical technology is at a standstill. This paper came though our observations and dealings with many geophysicists over time. We’ve been involved with…
Temperature versus political transparency: Does heat corrupt us?
Robert R. Stewart
Human discomfort increases at elevated temperatures (above about 27°C or 81°F). Higher temperatures impact our ability to work accurately and productively as well as to learn. Irritability and inclination to anger can increase, too. Transparency International is an organization that evaluates countries according to their political transparency – a value…
Integrated fluid-flow, geomechanic and seismic modelling for reservoir characterisation
D.A. Angus, J.P. Verdon, Q.J. Fisher, J-M. Kendall, J.M. Segura, T.G. Kristiansen, A.J.L. Crook, S. Skachkov, J. Yu and M. Dutko
Solutions to large number of problems facing the petroleum industry during exploration, appraisal and production require integration of knowledge and workflows from a range of disciplines including geology, petroleum engineering, geomechanics, rock physics, petro-physics and geophysics; in the future CO2 storage projects will also require such an integrated approach. Over…
Geomechanics: Bridging the Gap from Geophysics to Engineering in Unconventional Reservoirs
Kurt Wikel
Oilfield Geomechanics has a broad range of definitions, and depending on who you ask you may get a different answer. To this author, in its simplest form, it encompasses the study of how stresses and strains within the earth affect what we drill into and explore for. The magnitude and…
One “Grasshopper” at a time
John Fernando
As the academic year at SAIT comes to a close with all that is left being the grading of final exams and submitting of the grades, it is a time to reflect on my memories of yesteryear.
... The New Wave in Geophysics
Tom Sneddon
Recently, John Townsley, P.Geoph. who is now Past-President of the CSEG, wrote at length about the changing demographic landscape in the geophysics profession and industry sector. His point of departure was an address to the APEGGA Calgary Branch by Kim Farwell, P.Eng., APEGGA President. The “good news” portion of his…
Virtual source method for imaging and monitoring below complex overburden
Andrey Bakulin
Increasing overburden complexity can eventually destroy any type of surface imaging. While it may become intractable to unravel complex wave propagation in processing, it is always possible to capture it with measurement. The virtual source method uses surface shots with downhole receivers placed below the most complex part of the…
Compressive sensing in seismic exploration: an outlook on a new paradigm
Felix J. Herrmann, Haneet Wason, and Tim T.Y. Lin
Many seismic exploration techniques rely on the collection of massive data volumes that are subsequently mined for information during processing. While this approach has been extremely successful in the past, current efforts toward higher resolution images in increasingly complicated regions of the Earth continue to reveal fundamental shortcomings in our…
Neural network analysis and impedance inversion – Case study
Somanath Misra and Satinder Chopra
Inversion of post-stack seismic data is routinely done to obtain information about the P-wave impedance, which provides reliable information about the reservoir lithological properties. The most commonly used method for estimating P-impedance from the seismic traces is the model based inversion. This method requires an initial model and a wavelet…
Interesting pursuits in seismic curvature attribute analysis
Satinder Chopra and Kurt J. Marfurt
Since they are second-order derivatives, seismic curvature attributes can enhance subtle information that may be difficult to see using first-order derivatives such as the dip magnitude and the dip-azimuth attributes. As a result, these attributes form an integral part of most seismic interpretation projects. In this article we discuss some…
Extracting meaningful information from seismic attributes
Satinder Chopra
Seismic attributes are a powerful aid to seismic interpretation. They allow the geoscientist to interpret faults and channels, recognize the depositional environment, and unravel the structural deformation history more rapidly. By combining information from adjacent seismic samples and traces using a physical model (such as dip and azimuth, waveform similarity,…
