Joint microseismic moment tensor inversion and location using P- and S-waves diffraction stacking

Geophysics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-62
Author(s):  
Xu Jincheng ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Xing Liang ◽  
Jiaojun Rong ◽  
Junlun Li
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Moment Tensor ◽  
Moment Tensor Inversion ◽  
P Wave ◽  
Origin Time ◽  
S Waves ◽  
Surface Monitoring ◽  
Microseismic Events ◽  
Location Methods ◽  
Fracture Growth

The microseismic location methods based on diffraction stacking which does not require arrival picking can yield accurate and reliable source location for data with a low signal-to-noise ratio. However, due to the complex radiation pattern from a rupturing source, variation in the waveform polarities brings challenges to the diffraction-stacking based methods. The current implementations of joint source mechanism inversion and location methods which only use P-wave amplitudes have limitations in noise resistance and location accuracy. To mitigate those issues, we develop a new method for joint microseismic moment tensor inversion and event location using diffraction stacking with P- and S-waves amplitudes, both of which are used to invert for the moment tensor of a microseismic event, and then the inverted moment tensor is used to correct the waveform polarity changes before stacking. In addition, to expedite the large amount of calculations required for moment tensor inversion at each potential source position and origin time, we develop an optimized grid search scheme and implement the algorithm with GPUs. The proposed location method does not require manual picking of the first arrivals, and can automatically detect and locate microseismic events from continuous data. We first validated the method with two synthetic examples, and then applied it to a surface monitoring dataset for hydraulic fracturing at a shale gas well pad in the southern Sichuan Basin, China, where billions of cubic meters of shale gas are being produced annually. The locations of the microseismic events are nicely correlated with the fracturing stages and the determined source mechanisms are also consistent with the expected fracture growth. The proposed method is feasible for microseismic surface monitoring with dense nodal arrays and can provide important information for fracture growth and regional stress characterization.

Source parameter determination of local earthquakes in Korea using moment tensor inversion of single station data

1999 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 1077-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
So Gu Kim ◽  
Nadeja Kraeva
Keyword(s):  
Moment Tensor ◽  
Source Parameters ◽  
Moment Tensor Inversion ◽  
P Wave ◽  
Parameter Determination ◽  
Reverse Fault ◽  
3D Tomography ◽  
Single Station ◽  
Slip Event

Abstract The purpose of this investigation is to determine source parameters such as focal mechanism, seismic moment, moment magnitude, and source depth from recent small earthquakes in the Korcan Peninsula using broadband records of three-component single station. It is very important and worthwhile to use a three-component single station in Korea because for most Korean earthquakes it is not possible to read enough first motions of P-wave arrivals because of the poor coverage of the seismic network and the small size (ML 5.0 or less) of the events. Furthermore the recent installation of the very broadband seismic stations in Korea and use of a 3D tomography technique can enhance moment tensor inversion to determine the source parameters of small earthquakes (ML 5.0 or less) that occur at near-regional distances (Δ ≤ 500 km). The focal solution for the Youngwol earthquake of 13 December 1996 is found to be a right-lateral strike slip event with a NE strike, and the Kyongju earthquake of 25 June 1997 is found to be an oblique reverse fault with a slight component of left-lateral slip in the SE direction.

Automated microseismic event location by amplitude stacking and semblance

Geophysics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
pp. KS191-KS210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengwei Zhang ◽  
Wenxiao Qiao ◽  
Xiaohua Che ◽  
Junqiang Lu ◽  
Baiyong Men
Keyword(s):  
Body Waves ◽  
S Waves ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Location Uncertainty ◽  
Event Location ◽  
Time Average ◽  
Microseismic Events ◽  
Location Methods ◽  
Microseismic Event Location ◽  
Microseismic Event

Without the need to pick the arrival times of P- and S-waves, migration-based location methods, such as semblance-based and amplitude-stacking-based location methods, are best applied to microseismic events. By comparing and analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of these two methods, we have developed a new location method using amplitude information and semblance. First, we use the two-point ray-tracing method to calculate the traveltime of body waves from the trial point to each receiver, which determines the time-window positions of the P- and S-waves on all traces. Then, we calculate the semblance of the waveforms and the amplitude stacking of the ratio between the short-time average and the long-time average is computed upon the original waveform over the windows. Finally, the semblance weighted by amplitude stacking is used to image the spatial location of the microseismic events. Using experimental and synthetic data considering different factors that may affect the location result (e.g., the signal-to-noise ratio of the waveforms, the scale of the observation array, and the horizontal and vertical distances from the source to fracture zones), we perform microseismic event location with all three methods. According to the source imaging results from experimental and synthetic tests, the semblance method has great location uncertainty in the radial direction but it has good constraints in the circumferential direction; the amplitude-stacking method exhibits the opposite result; and the weighted-semblance method has good constraints in the circumferential and radial directions because it inherits the advantages of semblance-based and amplitude-stacking-based methods. Therefore, compared with existing migration-based location methods, our weighted-semblance method indicates stronger stability and lower location uncertainty, even when downhole monitoring is conducted with a limited aperture of the receiver array.

scholarly journals Relative moment tensors and deep Yakutat seismicity

2019 ◽  
Vol 219 (2) ◽  
pp. 1447-1462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre P Plourde ◽  
Michael G Bostock
Keyword(s):  
Principal Components ◽  
Moment Tensor ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
P Wave ◽  
Inversion Method ◽  
Low Velocity ◽  
Stress Regime ◽  
Moment Tensors ◽  
S Waves

SUMMARY We introduce a new relative moment tensor (MT) inversion method for clusters of nearby earthquakes. The method extends previous work by introducing constraints from S-waves that do not require modal decomposition and by employing principal component analysis to produce robust estimates of excitation. At each receiver, P and S waves from each event are independently aligned and decomposed into principal components. P-wave constraints on MTs are obtained from a ratio of coefficients corresponding to the first principal component, equivalent to a relative amplitude. For S waves we produce constraints on MTs involving three events, where one event is described as a linear combination of the other two, and coefficients are derived from the first two principal components. Nonlinear optimization is applied to efficiently find best-fitting tensile-earthquake and double-couple solutions for relative MT systems. Using synthetic data, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the P and S constraints both individually and in combination. We then apply the relative MT inversion to a set of 16 earthquakes from southern Alaska, at ∼125 km depth within the subducted Yakutat terrane. Most events are compatible with a stress tensor dominated by downdip tension, however, we observe several pairs of earthquakes with nearly antiparallel slip implying that the stress regime is heterogeneous and/or faults are extremely weak. The location of these events near the abrupt downdip termination of seismicity and the low-velocity zone suggest that they are caused by weakening via grain-size and volume reduction associated with eclogitization of the lower crustal gabbro layer.

Overview of moment-tensor inversion of microseismic events

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (8) ◽  
pp. 882-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Eyre ◽  
Mirko van der Baan
Keyword(s):  
Moment Tensor ◽  
Moment Tensor Inversion ◽  
Microseismic Events

scholarly journals Adaptive moment-tensor joint inversion of clustered microseismic events for monitoring geological carbon storage

2019 ◽  
Vol 219 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-93
Author(s):  
Yu Chen ◽  
Lianjie Huang
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Joint Inversion ◽  
Moment Tensor ◽  
Crack Opening ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Microseismic Monitoring ◽  
Moment Tensor Inversion ◽  
Inversion Method ◽  
Microseismic Events

SUMMARY Moment-tensor inversion of induced microseismic events can provide valuable information for tracking CO2 plumes at geological carbon storage sites, and study the physical mechanism of induced microseismicity. Accurate moment-tensor inversion requires a wide-azimuthal coverage of geophones. Cost-effective microseismic monitoring for geological carbon storage often uses only one geophone array within a borehole, leading to a large uncertainty in moment-tensor inversion. We develop a new adaptive moment-tensor joint inversion method to reduce the inversion uncertainty, when using limited but typical geophone receiver geometries. We first jointly invert a number of clustered microseismic events using a uniform focal mechanism to minimize the waveform misfit between observed and predicted P and S waveforms. We then invert the moment tensor for each event within a limited searching range around the joint inversion result. We apply our adaptive joint inversion method to microseismic data acquired using a single borehole geophone array at the CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery field at Aneth, Utah. We demonstrate that our inversion method is capable of reducing the inversion uncertainty caused by the limited azimuthal coverage of geophones. Our inverted strikes of focal mechanisms of microseismic events are consistent with the event spatial distribution in subparallel pre-existing fractures or geological imperfections. The large values up to 40 per cent of the CLVD components might indicate crack opening induced by CO2/wastewater injection or rupture complexity.

scholarly journals Imaging crustal structures through a passive seismic imaging approach in a mining area in Saxony, Germany

Solid Earth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2703-2715
Author(s):  
Hossein Hassani ◽  
Felix Hloušek ◽  
Stefan Buske ◽  
Olaf Wallner
Keyword(s):  
Velocity Model ◽  
Mining Area ◽  
P Wave ◽  
Seismic Survey ◽  
3D Seismic ◽  
Origin Time ◽  
Seismic Image ◽  
Passive Seismic ◽  
Microseismic Events ◽  
Image Cube

Abstract. We have used several flooding-induced microseismic events that occurred in an abandoned mining area to image geological structures close to the hypocentres in the vicinity of the mine. The events have been located using a migration-based localization approach. We used the recorded full waveforms of these localized microseismic events and have processed these passive source data as if they resulted from active sources at the known hypocentre location and origin time defined by the applied location approach. The imaging was then performed using a focusing 3D prestack depth migration approach for the secondary P-wave arrivals. The needed 3D migration velocity model was taken from a recent 3D active (controlled-source) seismic survey in that area. We observed several clear and pronounced reflectors in our obtained 3D seismic image cube, some of them related to a major fault zone in that area and some correlating well with information from the nearby mining activities. We compared our results to the 3D seismic image cube obtained directly from the 3D active seismic survey and have found new structures with our approach that were not known yet, probably because of their steep dips which the 3D active seismic survey had not illuminated. The location of the hypocentres at depth with respect to the illumination angles of those structures proved to be favourable in that case, and our 3D passive image complements the 3D active seismic image in an elegant way, thereby revealing new structures that cannot be imaged otherwise with surface seismic configurations alone.

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