Single Well Microseismic Monitoring Leveraging Hybrid Cable Combining Both DAS and Traditional Geophones

The single monitoring well configuration is a favorable option for microseismic monitoring considering risk and cost. It has commonly been used in various industries for decades. When using a single monitoring well, we rely among other things on the waveforms’ polarization information to accurately locate detected microseismic events. Additionally, using a large array aperture reduces hypocenter's uncertainty. Instead of solely relying on 3C geophones to achieve such objectives, we propose to combine 3C sensors and distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) equipment. It is quite a cost-effective solution, and it enables us to leverage each system's strength while minimizing their respective limitations when considered individually. We present the technical feasibility of such a hybrid microseismic monitoring system using data acquired during a monitoring campaign performed in the Montney formation, Canada. In this dataset, the optic fiber (DAS) is located in the wireline cable used to deploy the 3C geophones; themselves located at the bottom of the DAS wireline cable. Though different acquisition systems are employed for the geophone array and the DAS array, both datasets are GPS time stamped so that data can be processed properly. We scan the DAS data using an STA/LTA event detection, and we integrate with the 3C geophone data. We find the microseismic waveform in both the DAS and the geophone sections and confirm the arrival times are consistent between DAS and geophones. Once datasets are merged, we determine hypocenters using a migration-based event location method for such hybrid array. The uncertainty associated with the event located using the hybrid DAS – geophone array is smaller than for any of the systems looked at independently thanks to the increased array aperture. This case study demonstrates the viability and efficiency of the next generation of a single well acquisition system for microseismic monitoring. Not only does it lower event location uncertainty, but it is also more reliable and cost-effective than the conventional approaches.

Migration-Based Local Event-Location Workflow for Ocean-Bottom Seismometer (OBS) Records in Subduction Zones: A Practical Approach for Addressing a Large Number of Events

ABSTRACT An efficient event-location workflow is highly desired to analyze large numbers of local earthquakes recorded by ocean-bottom seismometers (OBSs) in subduction zones. The present study proposes a migration-based event-location approach for evaluating OBS records to examine local subduction-zone earthquakes. This approach can significantly reduce the amount of manual time picks compared with conventional methods. The event-location workflow was designed to detect arrival onsets of both P and S phases. Synthetic tests have shown that the proposed migration-based event-location method is robust against different types of noise, such as environmental noise and local spike noise. This workflow was then applied to real OBS data in the off-Ibaraki region at the southern end of the Japan trench. The results show that this approach is applicable to real data from subduction-zone events: It gives reasonable agreement with manual time picks for both P and S waves and reasonable error bars, and it demonstrates a clear down-dip trend of seismicity. The results also show fair agreement with event distributions from previous studies of the off-Ibaraki region. This proposed workflow can be used to examine the seismicity of local earthquakes around the subduction zone using OBSs. This approach is especially effective when the seismicity is high and/or in cases in which long-term OBS monitoring has recorded a large number of events.

Scattering Transform for Classification in Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring

Nonintrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) uses computational methods to disaggregate and classify electrical appliances signals. The classification is usually based on the power signatures of the appliances obtained by a feature extractor. State-of-the-art results were obtained extracting NILM features with convolutional neural networks (CNN). However, it depends on the training process with large datasets or data augmentation strategies. In this paper, we propose a feature extraction strategy for NILM using the Scattering Transform (ST). The ST is a convolutional network analogous to CNN. Nevertheless, it does not need a training process in the feature extraction stage, and the filter coefficients are analytically determined (not empirically, like CNN). We perform tests with the proposed method on different publicly available datasets and compare the results with state-of-the-art deep learning-based and traditional approaches (including wavelet transform and V-I representations). The results show that ST classification accuracy is more robust in terms of waveform parameters, such as signal length, sampling frequency, and event location. Besides, ST overcame the state-of-the-art techniques for single and aggregated loads (accuracies above 99% for all evaluated datasets), in different training scenarios with single and aggregated loads, indicating its feasibility in practical NILM scenarios.

Transdimensional simultaneous inversion of velocity structure and event locations in downhole microseismic monitoring

In downhole microseismic monitoring, the velocity model plays a vital role in accurate mapping of the hydraulic fracturing image. For velocity model uncertainties in the number of layers or interface depths, the conventional velocity calibration method has been shown to effectively locate the perforation shots; however, it introduces non-negligible location errors for microseismic events, especially for complex geological formations with inclinations. To improve the event location accuracy, we exploit the advantages of the reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (rjMCMC) approach in generating different dimensions of velocity models and propose a transdimensional Bayesian simultaneous inversion framework for obtaining the effective velocity structure and event locations simultaneously. The transdimensional inversion changes the number of layers during the inversion process and selects the optimal interface depths and velocity values to improve the event location accuracy. The confidence intervals of the simultaneous inversion event locations estimated by Bayesian inference enable us to evaluate the location uncertainties in the horizontal and vertical directions. Two synthetic examples and a field test are presented to illustrate the performance of our methodology, and the event location accuracy is shown to be higher than that obtained using the conventional methods. With less dependence on prior information, the proposed transdimensional simultaneous inversion method can be used to obtain an effective velocity structure for facilitating highly accurate hydraulic fracturing mapping.

Fluorescence-guided Surgery of Osteoradionecrosis of the Jaw: A Retrospective Study

BackgroundOsteoradionecrosis of the jaw (ORNJ) is one of the most severe head and neck complications in patients treated with radiotherapy (RT), and it is one of the diseases difficult to manage. The goal of the treatment is to achieve mucosal healing or suppress ORNJ progression. Currently, surgical removal of the necrotic bone is an effective management approach for advanced stages of ORNJ. This study aimed to identify the outcomes of fluorescence-guided surgery for ORNJ. MethodsNineteen ORNJ lesions in 15 hospitalized patients received fluorescence-guided surgery. Demographics, comorbidities, local preceding event, location, ORNJ stage, and treatment outcomes were retrospectively reviewed with a median follow-up period of 12 months.ResultsThe first 12 lesions (63%) were operated under tetracycline fluorescence, and 7 lesions (37%) were operated under auto-fluorescence. Overall, 4 lesions (21%) achieved complete mucosal healing, 8 lesions (42%) showed partial mucosal healing with bone exposure and no signs or symptoms of inflammation, and 7 lesions (37%) were progressive. The results showed that either healing or ORNJ stabilization was achieved in 63% of the lesions (n = 12). No significant association was observed between healing and the fluorescence technique.ConclusionFluorescence-guided surgery can be beneficial in curing or stabilizing ORNJ. Within the study limitations, autofluorescence-guided surgery seems to be as effective as tetracycline fluorescence-guided surgery for management of ORNJ. Trial registration: not applicable