Quantitative prediction of the fracture scale based on frequency-dependent S-wave splitting

Abstract

The development of natural fractures has a significant impact on underground reservoirs and leads to seismic anisotropy. Furthermore, the scale of natural fractures directly affects oil and gas preservation, hydraulic fracture construction, and the production development of shale reservoirs. The S-wave anisotropy is a frequency-dependent parameter and the change in S-wave anisotropy with frequency is a function of the fracture scale. We develop an innovative method for predicting the fracture scale quantitatively using frequency-dependent S-wave anisotropy. The quantitative relationship between different fracture scales and the frequency-dependent response of the S-wave splitting (SWS) anisotropy can be obtained using a dynamic rock-physics model. The frequency-dependent S-wave anisotropy is calculated via SWS analysis in the frequency domain, after which this quantitative relationship and the calculated frequency-dependent response are used to establish an objective function for the inversion of the fracture scale at different depths using the least-squares algorithm. We synthesize data under ideal conditions, test our method, apply our method to field data, and find that the quantitative prediction method of the fracture scale yielded reasonable prediction results. The S-wave anisotropy is calculated based on the SWS analysis from the horizontal components of the upgoing wavefields of the field vertical seismic profile. We compare the fracture scale calculated from logging data using our method, and the results obtained indicate that this method can successfully predict the fracture scale quantitatively.