Diffraction imaging as an interpretation tool

Abstract

In naturally fractured reservoirs, detailed mapping and understanding of the subsurface fracture network is necessary to optimize field development. There are a variety of seismically driven technologies for mapping and detecting fracture zones. For example, by investigating seismic anisotropy one can hope to obtain preferential fracture orientation. Moreover, by generating and extracting volume and/or horizon-based attributes, potential fracture corridors can be identified and mapped. In this work we present an imaging technology that focuses diffraction energy produced by sharp discontinuities and at the same time suppresses specular reflection arrivals. The diffraction-enhanced seismic sections assist and contribute significantly in the interpretation and identification of small-scale faults and fractures, and they are used in addition to other derived post-stack attributes such as coherency and curvature cubes. We describe the diffraction imaging methodology and illustrate its application using synthetic and real data examples. We also show the ability of the technique to map fracture swarms by focusing the associated diffracted energy in the pre-stack time domain.