Attenuation in fine‐grained marine sediments: Extension of the Biot‐Stoll model by the “effective grain model” (EGM)

Abstract

It is postulated that the presence of swelling clay minerals in unconsolidated fine‐grained saturated marine sediments leads to deviations from the normally assumed ideal elasticity of the solid phase. In the proposed “effective grain model” (EGM), the elastic grain material is consequently replaced by an effective medium made up of a homogeneous elastic mineral phase that is isotropically interspersed with cylindrical, “penny‐shaped” inclusions of low aspect ratio representing the intracrystalline water layers in the swelling clay minerals. The two‐phase nature of the grain material thus specified results in a wave‐energy consuming squirt‐flow process from the inclusions into the pore space. Introducing the EGM into the Biot‐Stoll model (BSM) via the complex bulk modulus of the dissipative grain material leads to a better fit to literature data on the attenuation of compressional waves than does the original BSM alone. Since swelling clay minerals occur in nearly all clay‐bearing sediments, it is concluded that the attenuation mechanism of the EGM may represent a universal contribution to the overall intrinsic anelasticity of unconsolidated fine‐grained saturated marine sediments in the frequency range from a few kilohertz to about 1 MHz.