Fracture Detection by Diffraction Imaging

Abstract

The main objective of imaging diffracted arrivals is to produce high resolution seismic sections in time or depth, which in turn will enhance the interpretation of fault edges, pinchouts, reef edges, fracture zones and other geologic discontinuities. In naturally fractured reservoirs a detailed understanding and mapping of the subsurface fracture network is often necessary to optimize field development plans. There is a variety of seismic driven technologies that attempt to map and detect fracture zones. For example, by analyzing seismic anisotropy one can obtain preferential fracture orientation, generating volume and/or horizon based extracted attributes potential fracture corridors can be identified and mapped.In the following we illustrate the methodology for imaging discontinuities, which enables us to obtain high resolution fracture maps. We then present, using synthetic and real data examples the ability of the methodology to map fracture corridors by focusing the associated scattering energy in the prestack domain and conclude by highlighting the benefits of the application on land seismic data (i.e., sparse acquisition and low signal to noise ratio). Complementing one another, the diffraction image sections should be interpreted in conjunction with the conventional reflection time migrated results.