Shear‐wave logging to enhance seismic modeling

Abstract

In an effort to understand better the amplitude variation with offset for reflections from an oil sand and the sensitivity of the AVO response to shear‐wave velocity variations, I studied synthetic and field gathers collected from an onshore field in the Gulf of Mexico basin. A wave‐equation‐based modeling program generated the synthetic seismic gathers using both measured and estimated shear‐wave velocities. The measured shear‐wave velocities came from a quadrupole sonic tool. The estimated shear‐wave velocities were obtained by applying published empirical and theoretical equations which relate shear‐wave velocities to measured compressional‐wave velocities. I carefully processed the recorded seismic data with a controlled‐amplitude processing stream. Comparison of the synthetic gathers with the processed field data leads to the conclusion that the model containing the measured shear‐wave velocities matches the field data much better than the model containing the estimated shear‐wave velocities. Therefore, existing equations which relate shear‐wave velocities to compressional‐wave velocities yield estimates which are not sufficiently accurate for making quantitative comparisons of synthetic and field gathers. Even small errors in the shear‐wave velocities can have a large impact on the output. Such errors can lead to an incomplete and perhaps inaccurate understanding of the amplitude‐versus‐offset response. This situation can be remedied by collecting shear‐wave data for use in amplitude‐versus‐offset modeling, and for building databases to generate better shear‐wave velocity estimator equations.