Source-independent time-lapse full-waveform inversion for VTI media

Geophysics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-51
Author(s):  
Yanhua Liu ◽  
Ilya Tsvankin

Time-lapse full-waveform inversion can provide high-resolution information about changes in the reservoir properties during hydrocarbon production and CO2 injection. However, the accuracy of the estimated source wavelet, which is critically important for time-lapse FWI, is often insufficient for field-data applications. The so-called “source-independent” FWI is designed to reduce the influence of the source wavelet on the inversion results. We incorporate the convolution-based source-independent technique into a time-lapse FWI algorithm for VTI (transversely isotropic with a vertical symmetry axis) media. The gradient of the modified FWI objective function is obtained from the adjoint-state method. The algorithm is tested on a model with a graben structure and the modified VTI Marmousi model using three time-lapse strategies (the parallel-difference, sequential-difference, and double-difference methods). The results confirm the ability of the developed methodology to reconstruct the localized time-lapse parameter variations even for a strongly distorted source wavelet. The algorithm remains robust in the presence of moderate noise in the input data but the accuracy of the estimated time-lapse changes depends on the model complexity.

Geophysics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. C53-C68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishant Kamath ◽  
Ilya Tsvankin

Most existing implementations of full-waveform inversion (FWI) are limited to acoustic approximations. In this paper, we present an algorithm for time-domain elastic FWI in laterally heterogeneous VTI (transversely isotropic with a vertical symmetry axis) media. The adjoint-state method is employed to derive the gradients of the objective function with respect to the stiffness coefficients and then to a chosen set of VTI parameters. To test the algorithm, we introduce Gaussian anomalies in the Thomsen parameters of a homogeneous VTI medium and perform 2D FWI of multicomponent transmission data for two different model parameterizations. To analyze the sensitivity of the objective function to the model parameters, the Fréchet kernel of FWI is obtained by linearizing the elastic wave equation using the Born approximation and employing the asymptotic Green’s function. The amplitude of the kernel (“radiation pattern”) yields the angle-dependent energy scattered by a perturbation in a certain model parameter. Then we convert the general expressions into simple approximations for the radiation patterns of P- and SV-waves in VTI media. These analytic developments provide valuable insight into the potential of multicomponent elastic FWI and help explain the numerical results for models with Gaussian anomalies in the VTI parameters.


Geophysics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. R225-R235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Di Yang ◽  
Faqi Liu ◽  
Scott Morton ◽  
Alison Malcolm ◽  
Michael Fehler

Knowledge of changes in reservoir properties resulting from extracting hydrocarbons or injecting fluid is critical to future production planning. Full-waveform inversion (FWI) of time-lapse seismic data provides a quantitative approach to characterize the changes by taking the difference of the inverted baseline and monitor models. The baseline and monitor data sets can be inverted either independently or jointly. Time-lapse seismic data collected by ocean-bottom cables (OBCs) in the Valhall field in the North Sea are suitable for such time-lapse FWI practice because the acquisitions are of a long offset, and the surveys are well-repeated. We have applied independent and joint FWI schemes to two time-lapse Valhall OBC data sets, which were acquired 28 months apart. The joint FWI scheme is double-difference waveform inversion (DDWI), which inverts differenced data (the monitor survey subtracted by the baseline survey) for model changes. We have found that DDWI gave a cleaner and more easily interpreted image of the reservoir changes compared with that obtained with the independent FWI schemes. A synthetic example is used to demonstrate the advantage of DDWI in mitigating spurious estimates of property changes and to provide cross validations for the Valhall data results.


Geophysics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-60
Author(s):  
Wei Zhou ◽  
David Lumley

Full waveform inversion (FWI) can be applied to time-lapse (4D) seismic data for subsurface reservoir monitoring. However, non-repeatability (NR) issues can contaminate the data and cause artifacts in the estimation of 4D rock and fluid property changes. Therefore, evaluating and studying the NR effects on the 4D data and FWI results can help, for instance, discriminate inversion artifacts from true changes, guide seismic survey design and processing workflow. Using realistic reservoir models, data and field measurements of NR, we show the effects of NR source-receiver position and seawater velocity changes on the data and the 4D FWI results. We find that ignoring these NR effects in the inversion can cause strong artifacts in the estimated velocity change models, and thus should be addressed before or during inversion. The NR source-receiver positioning issue can be addressed by 4D FWI successfully, whereas the NR water velocity issue requires measurements or estimations of water velocities. Furthermore, we compare the accuracy and robustness of the parallel, double-difference and central-difference 4D FWI methods to realistic NR ocean-bottom node data in a quantitative way. Parallel 4D FWI fails to capture geomechanical changes and also overestimates the aquifer layer changes with NR data. Double-difference 4D FWI is capable of recovering the geomechanical changes, but is also sensitive to NR noises, generating more artifacts in the overburden. By averaging the forward and reverse bootstrap 4D estimates, central-difference 4D FWI is more robust to NR noises, and also produces the most accurate 4D estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 103417
Author(s):  
Dong Li ◽  
Suping Peng ◽  
Xingguo Huang ◽  
Yinling Guo ◽  
Yongxu Lu ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musa Maharramov ◽  
Ganglin Chen ◽  
Partha S. Routh ◽  
Anatoly I. Baumstein ◽  
Sunwoong Lee ◽  
...  

Geophysics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. R45-R55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Espen Birger Raknes ◽  
Wiktor Weibull

In reverse time migration (RTM) or full-waveform inversion (FWI), forward and reverse time propagating wavefields are crosscorrelated in time to form either the image condition in RTM or the misfit gradient in FWI. The crosscorrelation condition requires both fields to be available at the same time instants. For large-scale 3D problems, it is not possible, in practice, to store snapshots of the wavefields during forward modeling due to extreme storage requirements. We have developed an approximate wavefield reconstruction method that uses particle velocity field recordings on the boundaries to reconstruct the forward wavefields during the computation of the reverse time wavefields. The method is computationally effective and requires less storage than similar methods. We have compared the reconstruction method to a boundary reconstruction method that uses particle velocity and stress fields at the boundaries and to the optimal checkpointing method. We have tested the methods on a 2D vertical transversely isotropic model and a large-scale 3D elastic FWI problem. Our results revealed that there are small differences in the results for the three methods.


Geophysics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Guangchi Xing ◽  
Tieyuan Zhu

We formulate the Fréchet kernel computation using the adjoint-state method based on a fractional viscoacoustic wave equation. We first numerically prove that both the 1/2- and the 3/2-order fractional Laplacian operators are self-adjoint. Using this property, we show that the adjoint wave propagator preserves the dispersion and compensates the amplitude, while the time-reversed adjoint wave propagator behaves identically as the forward propagator with the same dispersion and dissipation characters. Without introducing rheological mechanisms, this formulation adopts an explicit Q parameterization, which avoids the implicit Q in the conventional viscoacoustic/viscoelastic full waveform inversion ( Q-FWI). In addition, because of the decoupling of operators in the wave equation, the viscoacoustic Fréchet kernel is separated into three distinct contributions with clear physical meanings: lossless propagation, dispersion, and dissipation. We find that the lossless propagation kernel dominates the velocity kernel, while the dissipation kernel dominates the attenuation kernel over the dispersion kernel. After validating the Fréchet kernels using the finite-difference method, we conduct a numerical example to demonstrate the capability of the kernels to characterize both velocity and attenuation anomalies. The kernels of different misfit measurements are presented to investigate their different sensitivities. Our results suggest that rather than the traveltime, the amplitude and the waveform kernels are more suitable to capture attenuation anomalies. These kernels lay the foundation for the multiparameter inversion with the fractional formulation, and the decoupled nature of them promotes our understanding of the significance of different physical processes in the Q-FWI.


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