Key parameter optimization and analysis of stochastic seismic inversion

Stochastic seismic inversion is the combination of geostatistics and seismic inversion technology which integrates information from seismic records, well logs, and geostatistics into a posterior probability density function （PDF） of subsurface models. The Markov chain Monte Carlo （MCMC） method is used to sample the posterior PDF and the subsurface model characteristics can be inferred by analyzing a set of the posterior PDF samples. In this paper, we first introduce the stochastic seismic inversion theory, discuss and analyze the four key parameters： seismic data signal-to-noise ratio （S/N）, variogram, the posterior PDF sample number, and well density, and propose the optimum selection of these parameters. The analysis results show that seismic data S/N adjusts the compromise between the influence of the seismic data and geostatistics on the inversion results, the variogram controls the smoothness of the inversion results, the posterior PDF sample number determines the reliability of the statistical characteristics derived from the samples, and well density influences the inversion uncertainty. Finally, the comparison between the stochastic seismic inversion and the deterministic model based seismic inversion indicates that the stochastic seismic inversion can provide more reliable information of the subsurface character.

An evaluation of deep thin coal seams and water-bearing/resisting layers in the quaternary system using seismic inversion

Non-liner wave equation inversion,wavelet analysis and artificial neural networks were used to obtain stratum parameters and the distribution of thin coal seams.The lithology of the water-bearing/resisting layer in the Quaternary system was also predicted.The implementation process included calculating the well log parameters,stratum contrasting the seismic data and the well logs,and extracting,studying and predicting seismic attributes.Seismic inversion parameters,including the layer velocity and wave impedance,were calculated and effectively used for prediction and analysis.Prior knowledge and seismic interpretation were used to remedy a dearth of seismic data during the inversion procedure.This enhanced the stability of the inversion method.Non-linear seismic inversion and artificial neural networks were used to interpret coal seismic lithology and to study the water-bearing/resisting layer in the Quaternary system.Interpretation of the 1～2 m thin coal seams,and also of the water-bearing/resisting layer in the Quaternary system,is provided.The upper mining limit can be lifted from 60 m to 45 m.The predictions show that this method can provide reliable data useful for thin coal seam exploitation and for lifting the upper mining limit,which is one of the principles of green mining.

Development and application of iterative facies-constrained seismic inversion

To improve the accuracy of inversion results,geological facies distributions are considered as additional constraints in the inversion process.However,the geological facies itself also has its own uncertainty.In this paper,the initial sedimentary facies maps are obtained by integrated geological analysis from well data,seismic attributes,and deterministic inversion results.Then the fi rst iteration of facies-constrained seismic inversion is performed.According to that result and other data such as geological information,the facies distribution can be updated using cluster analysis.The next round of facies-constrained inversion can then be performed.This process will be repeated until the facies inconsistency or error before and after the inversion is minimized.It forms a new iterative facies-constrained seismic inversion technique.Compared with conventional facies-constrained seismic inversion,the proposed method not only can reduces the non-uniqueness of seismic inversion results but also can improves its resolution.As a consequence,the sedimentary facies will be more consistent with the geology.A practical application demonstrated that the superposition relationship of sand bodies could be better delineated based on this new seismic inversion technique.The result highly increases the understanding of reservoir connectivity and its accuracy,which can be used to guide further development.

Application of well log normalization in coalfield seismic inversion

During the process of coal prospecting and exploration, different measurement time, different logging instruments and series can lead to systematic errors in well logs. Accordingly, all logging curves need to be normalized in the mining area. By studying well-logging normalization methods, and focusing on the characteristics of the coalfield, the frequency histogram method was used in accordance with the condition of the Guqiao Coal Mine. In this way, the density and sonic velocity at marker bed in the non-key well were made to close to those in the key well, and were eventually equal. Well log normalization was completed when this method was applied to the entire logging curves. The results show that the scales of logging data were unified by normalizing coal logging curves, and the logging data were consistent with wave impedance inversion data. A satisfactory inversion effect was obtained.

Particle swarm optimization and its application to seismic inversion of igneous rocks

In order to improve the fine structure inversion ability of igneous rocks for the exploration of underlying strata, based on particle swarm optimization(PSO), we have developed a method for seismic wave impedance inversion. Through numerical simulation, we tested the effects of different algorithm parameters and different model parameterization methods on PSO wave impedance inversion, and analyzed the characteristics of PSO method. Under the conclusions drawn from numerical simulation, we propose the scheme of combining a cross-moving strategy based on a divided block model and high-frequency filtering technology for PSO inversion. By analyzing the inversion results of a wedge model of a pitchout coal seam and a coal coking model with igneous rock intrusion, we discuss the vertical and horizontal resolution, stability and reliability of PSO inversion. Based on the actual seismic and logging data from an igneous area, by taking a seismic profile through wells as an example, we discuss the characteristics of three inversion methods, including model-based wave impedance inversion, multi-attribute seismic inversion based on probabilistic neural network(PNN) and wave impedance inversion based on PSO.And we draw the conclusion that the inversion based on PSO method has a better result for this igneous area.

A Study of Thin Sandstone Reservoirs by High-resolution Seismic Inversion

In this paper seismic inversion was used as a key technique and the seismic wavelet most suitable to the actual underground situation was extracted with the higher-order statistics algorithm. The wavelets extracted in this way and the wavelets extracted with the seismic statistics techniques were used separately for inverting the seismic data of the southern part of Tahe oilfield, Tarim basin. The results showed that the resolution of the wavelet inversion with the higher-order statistics method was greatly improved, and the wavelet-inverted section could better distinguish the thin sandstone reservoirs of the upper and lower Carboniferous and their lateral distribution, providing a reliable basis of analysis for the study of thin sandstone reservoirs.

Capture the variation of the pore pressure with different geological age from seismic inversion study in the Jaisalmer sub-basin,India

Geoscientific evidence shows that various parameters such as compaction,buoyancy effect,hydrocarbon maturation,gas effect and tectonic activities control the pore pressure of sub-surface geology.Spatially controlled geoscientific data in the tectonically active areas is significantly useful for robust estimation of pre-drill pore pressure.The reservoir which is tectonically complex and pore pressure is changing frequently that circumference motivated us to conduct this study.The changes in pore pressure have been captured from the fine-scale to the broad scale in the Jaisalmer sub-basin.Pore pressure variation has been distinctly observed in pre-and post-Jurassic age based on the current study.Post-stack seismic inversion study was conducted to capturing the variation of pore pressure.Analysis of low-frequency spectrum and integrated interval velocity model provided a detailed feature of pore pressure in each compartment of the study area.Pore pressure estimated from well log data was correlated with seismic inversion based result.Based on the current study one well has been proposed where pore pressure was estimated and two distinguished trends are identified in the study zone.The approaches of the current study were analysed thoroughly and it will be highly useful in complex reservoir condition where pore pressure varies frequently.

Porosity prediction from seismic inversion of a similarity attribute based on a pseudo-forward equation(PFE):a case study from the North Sea Basin,Netherlands

The objective of this work is to implement a pseudo-forward equation which is called PFE to transform data （similarity attribute） to model parameters （porosity） in a gas reservoir in the F3 block of North Sea. This equation which is an experimental model has unknown constants in its structure; hence, a least square solution is applied to find the best constants. The results derived from solved equa- tions show that the errors on measured data are mapped into the errors of estimated constants; hence, Tikhonov regularization is used to improve the estimated parameters. The results are compared with a conventional method such as cross plotting between acoustic impedance and porosity values to validate the PFE model. When the testing dataset in sand units was used, the correlation coefficient between two variables （actual and predicted values） was obtained as 0.720 and 0.476 for PFE model and cross-plotting analysis, respectively. Therefore, the testing dataset validates rela- tively well the PFE optimized by Tikhonov regularization in sand units of a gas reservoir. The obtained results indi- cate that PFE could provide initial information about sandstone reservoirs. It could estimate reservoir porosity distribution approximately and it highlights bright spots and fault structures such as gas chimneys and salt edges.

Application of Seismic Inversion Using Logging Data as Constraints in Coalfield

Seismic inversion and basic theory are briefly presented and the main idea of this method is introduced. Both non-linear wave equation inversion technique and Complete Utilization of Samples Information (CUSI) neural network analysis are used in lithological interpretation in Jibei coal field. The prediction results indicate that this method can provide reliable data for thin coal exploitation and promising area evaluation.

Model-data-driven seismic inversion method based on small sample data

As sandstone layers in thin interbedded section are difficult to identify,conventional model-driven seismic inversion and data-driven seismic prediction methods have low precision in predicting them.To solve this problem,a model-data-driven seismic AVO(amplitude variation with offset)inversion method based on a space-variant objective function has been worked out.In this method,zero delay cross-correlation function and F norm are used to establish objective function.Based on inverse distance weighting theory,change of the objective function is controlled according to the location of the target CDP(common depth point),to change the constraint weights of training samples,initial low-frequency models,and seismic data on the inversion.Hence,the proposed method can get high resolution and high-accuracy velocity and density from inversion of small sample data,and is suitable for identifying thin interbedded sand bodies.Tests with thin interbedded geological models show that the proposed method has high inversion accuracy and resolution for small sample data,and can identify sandstone and mudstone layers of about one-30th of the dominant wavelength thick.Tests on the field data of Lishui sag show that the inversion results of the proposed method have small relative error with well-log data,and can identify thin interbedded sandstone layers of about one-15th of the dominant wavelength thick with small sample data.

Seismic inversion for underground fractures detection based on effective anisotropy and fluid substitution

Underground fractures play an important role in the storage and movement of hydrocarbon fluid. Fracture rock physics has been the useful bridge between fracture parameters and seismic response. In this paper, we aim to use seismic data to predict subsurface fractures based on rock physics. We begin with the construction of fracture rock physics model. Using the model, we may estimate P-wave velocity, S-wave velocity and fracture rock physics parameters. Then we derive a new approximate formula for the analysis of the relationship between fracture rock physics parameters and seismic response, and we also propose the method which uses seismic data to invert the elastic and rock physics parameters of fractured rock. We end with the method verification, which includes using well-logging data to confirm the reliability of fracture rock physics effective model and utilizing real seismic data to validate the applicability of the inversion method. Tests show that the fracture rock physics effective model may be used to estimate velocities and fracture rock physics parameters reliably, and the inversion method is resultful even when the seismic data is added with random noise. Real data test also indicates the inversion method can be applied into the estimation of the elastic and fracture weaknesses parameters in the target area.

Seismic impedance inversion based on cycle-consistent generative adversarial network

Deep learning has achieved great success in a variety of research fields and industrial applications.However,when applied to seismic inversion,the shortage of labeled data severely influences the performance of deep learning-based methods.In order to tackle this problem,we propose a novel seismic impedance inversion method based on a cycle-consistent generative adversarial network(Cycle-GAN).The proposed Cycle-GAN model includes two generative subnets and two discriminative subnets.Three kinds of loss,including cycle-consistent loss,adversarial loss,and estimation loss,are adopted to guide the training process.Benefit from the proposed structure,the information contained in unlabeled data can be extracted,and adversarial learning further guarantees that the prediction results share similar distributions with the real data.Moreover,a neural network visualization method is adopted to show that the proposed CNN model can learn more distinguishable features than the conventional CNN model.The robustness experiments on synthetic data sets show that the proposed method can achieve better performances than other methods in most cases.And the blind-well experiments on real seismic profiles show that the predicted impedance curve of the proposed method maintains a better correlation with the true impedance curve.

Analysis of the ambiguity of log-constrained seismic impedance inversion

Although the ambiguity of seismic inversion is widely recognized in both theory and practice, so far as a concrete inversion example is concerned, there is not any objective, controllable method or any standard for how to evaluate and determine its ambiguity and reliability, especially for the high frequency components beyond the effective seismic frequency band. Taking log-constrained impedance inversion as an example, a new appraisal method is proposed on the basis of analyzing a simple geological model. Firstly, the inverted impedance model is transformed to a reflection coefficient series. Secondly, the maximum effective frequency of the real seismic data is chosen as a cutoff point and the reflection coefficient series is decomposed into two components by low-pass and high-pass filters. Thirdly, the geometrical reflection characteristics of the high-frequency components and that of the real seismic data are compared and analyzed. Then, the reliability of the inverted impedance model is appraised according to the similarity of geometrical characteristics between the high-frequency components and the real seismic data. The new method avoids some subjectivity in appraising the inverted result, and helps to enhance the reliability of reservoir prediction by impedance inversion technology.

A comparison of deep learning methods for seismic impedance inversion

Deep learning is widely used for seismic impedance inversion,but few work provides in-depth research and analysis on designing the architectures of deep neural networks and choosing the network hyperparameters.This paper is dedicated to comprehensively studying on the significant aspects of deep neural networks that affect the inversion results.We experimentally reveal how network hyperparameters and architectures affect the inversion performance,and develop a series of methods which are proven to be effective in reconstructing high-frequency information in the estimated impedance model.Experiments demonstrate that the proposed multi-scale architecture is helpful to reconstruct more high-frequency details than a conventional network.Besides,the reconstruction of high-frequency information can be further promoted by introducing a perceptual loss and a generative adversarial network from the computer vision perspective.More importantly,the experimental results provide valuable references for designing proper network architectures in the seismic inversion problem.

Least-Squares Seismic Inversion with Stochastic Conjugate Gradient Method

With the development of computational power, there has been an increased focus on data-fitting related seismic inversion techniques for high fidelity seismic velocity model and image, such as full-waveform inversion and least squares migration. However, though more advanced than conventional methods, these data fitting methods can be very expensive in terms of computational cost. Recently, various techniques to optimize these data-fitting seismic inversion problems have been implemented to cater for the industrial need for much improved efficiency. In this study, we propose a general stochastic conjugate gradient method for these data-fitting related inverse problems. We first prescribe the basic theory of our method and then give synthetic examples. Our numerical experiments illustrate the potential of this method for large-size seismic inversion application.

A method of seismic meme inversion and its application

Under the condition of thin interbeds with great lateral changes in terrestrial basins,a seismic meme inversion method is established based on the analysis of seismic sedimentology technology.The relationship between seismic waveform and high-frequency well logs is established through dynamic clustering of seismic waveform to improve the vertical and horizontal resolution of inversion results;meanwhile,by constructing the Bayesian inversion framework of different seismic facies,the real facies controlled inversion is realized.The forward model verification results show that the seismic meme inversion can realize precise prediction of 3 m thick thin interbeds,proving the rationality and high precision of the method.The application in the Daqing placanticline shows that the seismic meme inversion could identify 2 m thin interbeds,and the coincidence rates of inversion results and drilling data were more than 80%.The seismic meme inversion method can improve the accuracy of reservoir prediction and provides a useful mean for thin interbeds prediction in terrestrial basins.

Seismic-inversion method for nonlinear mapping multilevel well–seismic matching based on bidirectional long short-term memory networks

In this paper,the recurrent neural network structure of a bidirectional long shortterm memory network(Bi-LSTM)with special memory cells that store information is used to characterize the deep features of the variation pattern between logging and seismic data.A mapping relationship model between high-frequency logging data and low-frequency seismic data is established via nonlinear mapping.The seismic waveform is infinitely approximated using the logging curve in the low-frequency band to obtain a nonlinear mapping model of this scale,which then stepwise approach the logging curve in the high-frequency band.Finally,a seismic-inversion method of nonlinear mapping multilevel well–seismic matching based on the Bi-LSTM network is developed.The characteristic of this method is that by applying the multilevel well–seismic matching process,the seismic data are stepwise matched to the scale range that is consistent with the logging curve.Further,the matching operator at each level can be stably obtained to effectively overcome the problems that occur in the well–seismic matching process,such as the inconsistency in the scale of two types of data,accuracy in extracting the seismic wavelet of the well-side seismic traces,and multiplicity of solutions.Model test and practical application demonstrate that this method improves the vertical resolution of inversion results,and at the same time,the boundary and the lateral characteristics of the sand body are well maintained to improve the accuracy of thin-layer sand body prediction and achieve an improved practical application effect.

3D modeling of abnormal pore pressure in shallow offshore Niger delta: An application of seismic inversion

Pore pressure is the pressure associated with fluids in the pore spaces of sedimentary rocks. Thispressure varies from hydrostatic to severe overpressure. It is classified as abnormal pressure when itdeviates from hydrostatic pressure. Incorrect prediction or the absence of pore pressure evaluation canlead to severe damage of the drilling platform, loss of personnel, waste of resources and environmentalpollution. This study was carried out in an offshore field in Niger Delta with an objective of predicting theabnormal pressure regime from the seismic volume using seismic inversion technique. First, weemployed the Eaton’s and Bower’s model of predicting pore pressure from Well log. The predicted porepressure from the well was used to calibrate the P-impedance that was used in the inversion process. Apressure-based model for the seismic inversion process was developed. This was constrained by therelationship between the P-impedance and pore pressure in the study area. The predicted pore pressurefrom the Well logs aligned with the measured pore pressure in the formation. At about 3600 m to end ofthe Well, depicts a pressure regime that is a deviation from the hydrostatic pressure trend. The abnormalpressure regime is marked by the region where a change is observed in the normal compaction trendline. The cross plot of acoustic impedance against pore pressure reveals a linear relationship;with adirect relationship indicating a normal pressure interval and the indirect relationship at the abnormalpressure regime. The inverted 3D pressure result from the seismic volume validates the normalcompaction trend line and also the pressure values estimated from the Well logs. The abnormal pressureregime in the study area is predicted to be found towards the end of Agbada Formation and through theAkata Formation due to the un-compacted shales.

2-D crustal structure of Changbaishan-Tianchi volcanic region determined by seismic traveltime inversion

2-D velocity structure and tectonics of the crust and upper mantle is revealed by inversion of seismic refraction and wide-angle reflection traveltimes acquired along the profile L1 in the Changbaishan-Tianchi volcanic region. It is used in this study that seismic traveltime inversion for simultaneous determination of 2-D velocity and interface structure of the crust and upper mantle. The result shows that, under Changbaishan-Tianchi crater, there exists a low-velocity body in the shape of an inverted triangle, and the crustal reflecting boundaries and Moho all become lower by a varying margin of 2-6 km, forming a crustal root which is assumed to be the Changbaishan-Tianchi volcanic system. Finally, we make a comparison between our 2-D velocity model and the result from the studies by using trial-and-error forward modeling with SEIS83.

Crustal velocity structure of central Gansu Province from regional seismic waveform inversion using firework algorithm

The firework algorithm（FWA） is a novel swarm intelligence-based method recently proposed for the optimization of multi-parameter, nonlinear functions. Numerical waveform inversion experiments using a synthetic model show that the FWA performs well in both solution quality and efficiency. We apply the FWA in this study to crustal velocity structure inversion using regional seismic waveform data of central Gansu on the northeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Seismograms recorded from the moment magnitude（MW） 5.4 Minxian earthquake enable obtaining an average crustal velocity model for this region. We initially carried out a series of FWA robustness tests in regional waveform inversion at the same earthquake and station positions across the study region,inverting two velocity structure models, with and without a low-velocity crustal layer; the accuracy of our average inversion results and their standard deviations reveal the advantages of the FWA for the inversion of regional seismic waveforms. We applied the FWA across our study area using three component waveform data recorded by nine broadband permanent seismic stations with epicentral distances ranging between 146 and 437 km. These inversion results show that the average thickness of the crust in this region is 46.75 km, while thicknesses of the sedimentary layer, and the upper, middle, and lower crust are 3.15,15.69, 13.08, and 14.83 km, respectively. Results also show that the P-wave velocities of these layers and the upper mantle are 4.47, 6.07, 6.12, 6.87, and 8.18 km/s,respectively.