Drill‐bit seismic interferometry with and without pilot signals*

We use different interferometry approaches to process the seismic signals generated by a drill‐bit source in one well and recorded by seismic receivers located both in a second borehole and at the surface near the source well. We compare the standard interferometry results, obtained by using the raw drill‐bit data without a pilot signal, with the new interferometry results obtained by using the drill‐bit seismograms correlated with a reference pilot signal. The analysis of the stationary phase shows that the final results have different S/N levels and are affected by the coherent noise in the form of rig arrivals. The interferometry methods are compared by using different deconvolution approaches. The analysis shows that the results agree with the conventional drill‐bit seismograms and that using the reference pilot signal improves the quality of the drill‐bit wavefields redatumed by the interferometry method.     

地震干涉测量法近地表散射波分离技术

针对山地地震勘探数据低信噪比问题,近地表散射波分离意义显得尤为突出,地震干涉测量法为此提供了一种技术手段.本文将地震干涉测量理论和散射理论结合起来,导出了近地表散射波地震干涉测量表达式,分为互相关型和褶积型表达式,它们由实际波场和背景波场干涉测量构成.根据近地表散射波分离理论,结合陆上地震勘探实际观测系统,采用褶积和反褶积混合型地震干涉测量配置,用实际地震资料展示了近地表散射波分离技术的应用效果.经过理论分析和砾石区实际资料试验,表明地震干涉测量不仅能分离测线上散射源产生的散射波,而且能分离部分侧面散射波.该技术的优点在于它适应于起伏地形和不均匀近地表结构,并且不需要起伏地形和近地表速度信息.为了从实际资料中消除近地表散射波,本文采用多道匹配滤波自适应减法,在砾石区见到较好效果.     

高铁地震数据干涉成像技术初探

高铁运行会引起铁轨的震动,从而产生地震波向地下介质中传播,通过研究该地震波可对高铁沿线的地质情况进行持续监测.与常规地震勘探中的震源相比,高铁地震中的震源较为复杂,为移动震源,而地震干涉技术可以通过地震记录间的相互干涉,消除震源的影响,因此可利用地震干涉技术对高铁地震信号进行处理并成像.本文通过分析研究,总结出地震干涉方法在处理高铁地震数据时的关键技术问题:不同于常规地震干涉中先干涉后叠加的干涉成像方式,高铁地震移动源的特点使得干涉顺序变为先叠加后干涉,由此带入了大量震源串扰噪声;初步提出两种解决高铁地震干涉成像的思路:通过对高铁地震信号的处理,使高铁变相"提速"或"降速",给出了"提速"或"降速"后各自的成像思路,并给出了数据处理的技术设想.     

Scattered ground‐roll attenuation using model‐driven interferometry

Scattered ground roll is a type of noise observed in land seismic data that can be particularly difficult to suppress. Typically, this type of noise cannot be removed using conventional velocity‐based filters. In this paper, we discuss a model‐driven form of seismic interferometry that allows suppression of scattered ground‐roll noise in land seismic data. The conventional cross‐correlate and stack interferometry approach results in scattered noise estimates between two receiver locations (i.e. as if one of the receivers had been replaced by a source). For noise suppression, this requires that each source we wish to attenuate the noise from is co‐located with a receiver. The model‐driven form differs, as the use of a simple model in place of one of the inputs for interferometry allows the scattered noise estimate to be made between a source and a receiver. This allows the method to be more flexible, as co‐location of sources and receivers is not required, and the method can be applied to data sets with a variety of different acquisition geometries. A simple plane‐wave model is used, allowing the method to remain relatively data driven, with weighting factors for the plane waves determined using a least‐squares solution. Using a number of both synthetic and real two‐dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D) land seismic data sets, we show that this model‐driven approach provides effective results, allowing suppression of scattered ground‐roll noise without having an adverse effect on the underlying signal.     

Retrieving virtual reflection responses at drill‐bit positions using seismic interferometry with drill‐bit noise

In the field of seismic interferometry, researchers have retrieved surface waves and body waves by cross‐correlating recordings of uncorrelated noise sources to extract useful subsurface information. The retrieved wavefields in most applications are between receivers. When the positions of the noise sources are known, inter‐source interferometry can be applied to retrieve the wavefields between sources, thus turning sources into virtual receivers. Previous applications of this form of interferometry assume impulsive point sources or transient sources with similar signatures. We investigate the requirements of applying inter‐source seismic interferometry using non‐transient noise sources with known positions to retrieve reflection responses at those positions and show the results using synthetic drilling noise as source. We show that, if pilot signals (estimates of the drill‐bit signals) are not available, it is required that the drill‐bit signals are the same and that the phases of the virtual reflections at drill‐bit positions can be retrieved by deconvolution interferometry or by cross‐coherence interferometry. Further, for this case, classic interferometry by cross‐correlation can be used if the source power spectrum can be estimated. If pilot signals are available, virtual reflection responses can be obtained by first using standard seismic‐while‐drilling processing techniques such as pilot cross‐correlation and pilot deconvolution to remove the drill‐bit signatures in the data and then applying cross‐correlation interferometry. Therefore, provided that pilot signals are reliable, drill‐bit data can be redatumed from surface to borehole depths using this inter‐source interferometry approach without any velocity information of the medium, and we show that a well‐positioned image below the borehole can be obtained using interferometrically redatumed reflection responses with just a simple velocity model. We discuss some of the practical hurdles that restrict the application of the proposed method offshore.     

3D surface‐wave estimation and separation using a closed‐loop approach

Surface waves in seismic data are often dominant in a land or shallow‐water environment. Separating them from primaries is of great importance either for removing them as noise for reservoir imaging and characterization or for extracting them as signal for near‐surface characterization. However, their complex properties make the surface‐wave separation significantly challenging in seismic processing. To address the challenges, we propose a method of three‐dimensional surface‐wave estimation and separation using an iterative closed‐loop approach. The closed loop contains a relatively simple forward model of surface waves and adaptive subtraction of the forward‐modelled surface waves from the observed surface waves, making it possible to evaluate the residual between them. In this approach, the surface‐wave model is parameterized by the frequency‐dependent slowness and source properties for each surface‐wave mode. The optimal parameters are estimated in such a way that the residual is minimized and, consequently, this approach solves the inverse problem. Through real data examples, we demonstrate that the proposed method successfully estimates the surface waves and separates them out from the seismic data. In addition, it is demonstrated that our method can also be applied to undersampled, irregularly sampled, and blended seismic data.     

Seismic interferometry experiment in a shallow cased borehole using a seismic vibrator source‡

We present the results of a seismic interferometry experiment in a shallow cased borehole. The experiment is an initial study for subsequent borehole seismic surveys in an instrumented well site, where we plan to test other surface/borehole seismic techniques. The purpose of this application is to improve the knowledge of the reflectivity sequence and to verify the potential of the seismic interferometry approach to retrieve high‐frequency signals in the single well geometry, overcoming the loss and attenuation effects introduced by the overburden. We used a walkaway vertical seismic profile (VSP) geometry with a seismic vibrator to generate polarized vertical and horizontal components along a surface seismic line and an array of 3C geophones cemented outside the casing. The recorded traces are processed to obtain virtual sources in the borehole and to simulate single‐well gathers with a variable source‐receiver offset in the vertical array. We compare the results obtained by processing the field data with synthetic signals calculated by numerical simulation and analyse the signal bandwidth and amplitude versus offset to evaluate near‐field effects in the virtual signals. The application provides direct and reflected signals with improved bandwidth after vibrator signal deconvolution. Clear reflections are detected in the virtual seismic sections in agreement with the geology and other surface and borehole seismic data recorded with conventional seismic exploration techniques.     

Suppression of near‐surface scattered body‐to‐surface waves: a steerable and nonlinear filtering approach

We present an approach based on local‐slope estimation for the separation of scattered surface waves from reflected body waves. The direct and scattered surface waves contain a significant amount of seismic energy. They present great challenges in land seismic data acquisition and processing, particularly in arid regions with complex near‐surface heterogeneities (e.g., dry river beds, wadis/large escarpments, and karst features). The near‐surface scattered body‐to‐surface waves, which have comparable amplitudes to reflections, can mask the seismic reflections. These difficulties, added to large amplitude direct and back‐scattered surface (Rayleigh) waves, create a major reduction in signal‐to‐noise ratio and degrade the final sub‐surface image quality. Removal of these waves can be difficult using conventional filtering methods, such as an filter, without distorting the reflected signal. The filtering algorithm we present is based on predicting the spatially varying slope of the noise, using steerable filters, and separating the signal and noise components by applying a directional nonlinear filter oriented toward the noise direction to predict the noise and then subtract it from the data. The slope estimation step using steerable filters is very efficient. It requires only a linear combination of a set of basis filters at fixed orientation to synthesize an image filtered at an arbitrary orientation. We apply our filtering approach to simulated data as well as to seismic data recorded in the field to suppress the scattered surface waves from reflected body waves, and we demonstrate its superiority over conventional techniques in signal preservation and noise suppression.     

Field trial of seismic recording using distributed acoustic sensing with broadside sensitive fibre‐optic cables

Distributed acoustic sensing is an emerging technology using fibre‐optic cables to detect acoustic disturbances such as flow noise and seismic signals. The technology has been applied successfully in hydraulic fracture monitoring and vertical seismic profiling. One of the limitations of distributed acoustic sensing for seismic recording is that the conventional straight fibres do not have broadside sensitivity and therefore cannot be used in configurations where the raypaths are essentially orthogonal to the fibre‐optic cable, such as seismic reflection methods from the surface. The helically wound cable was designed to have broadside sensitivity. In this paper, a field trial is described to validate in a qualitative sense the theoretically predicted angle‐dependent response of a helically wound cable. P‐waves were measured with a helically wound cable as a function of the angle of incidence in a shallow horizontal borehole and compared with measurements with a co‐located streamer. The results show a similar behaviour as a function of the angle of incidence as the theory. This demonstrates the possibility of using distributed acoustic sensing with a helically wound cable as a seismic detection system with a horizontal cable near the surface. The helically wound cable does not have any active parts and can be made as a slim cable with a diameter of a few centimetres. For that reason, distributed acoustic sensing with a helically wound cable is a potential low‐cost option for permanent seismic monitoring on land.     

Retrieval of super‐virtual refraction by cross‐correlation

Topography and severe variations of near‐surface layers lead to travel‐time perturbations for the events in seismic exploration. Usually, these perturbations could be estimated and eliminated by refraction technology. The virtual refraction method is a relatively new technique for retrieval of refraction information from seismic records contaminated by noise. Based on the virtual refraction, this paper proposes super‐virtual refraction interferometry by cross‐correlation to retrieve refraction wavefields by summing the cross‐correlation of raw refraction wavefields and virtual refraction wavefields over all receivers located outside the retrieved source and receiver pair. This method can enhance refraction signal gradually as the source–receiver offset decreases. For further enhancement of refracted waves, a scheme of hybrid virtual refraction wavefields is applied by stacking of correlation‐type and convolution‐type super‐virtual refractions. Our new method does not need any information about the near‐surface velocity model, which can solve the problem of directly unmeasured virtual refraction energy from the virtual source at the surface, and extend the acquisition aperture to its maximum extent in raw seismic records. It can also reduce random noise influence in raw seismic records effectively and improve refracted waves’ signal‐to‐noise ratio by a factor proportional to the square root of the number of receivers positioned at stationary‐phase points, based on the improvement of virtual refraction's signal‐to‐noise ratio. Using results from synthetic and field data, we show that our new method is effective to retrieve refraction information from raw seismic records and improve the accuracy of first‐arrival picks.     

基于逆虚折射干涉法有效提取近地表弱地震信号

在地震勘探中,地形起伏和近地表速度的剧烈变化会导致地震波旅行时的扰动,通常会通过折射波信息来估算和消除这些扰动.本文在虚折射的基础上提出了逆虚折射干涉法,通过虚折射波场和原始折射波场的互相关,并对所有位于固定相位点上的检波点进行叠加,重构出逆虚折射波场.通过逆虚折射与超级虚折射的叠加,保证了不同偏移距下折射波振幅恢复的一致性,显著提高折射波的信噪比,有效提取弱信号.同时,本文采用反褶积干涉法来压制由于互相关和褶积产生的子波旁瓣的影响,弥补低频和高频能量的损失,改善恢复的折射波场的稳定性和分辨率.该新方法不需要知道近地表复杂速度模型的信息,可以将虚折射的勘探孔径恢复到原始地震记录的最大孔径.合成资料和实际资料的计算结果表明,基于反褶积的逆虚折射干涉法能够从低信噪比的资料中,有效恢复出折射波信息.     

背景噪声提取体波方法研究进展

地球深部结构探测是地球物理学的核心领域,而地震体波可以深入地球内部且分辨率较高,是研究地球内部结构不可或缺的技术手段。基于背景噪声提取高信噪比体波信号技术的迅速发展,极大地促进了地震学的发展和应用范围,使其在地球深部结构成像、城市浅层空间探测等领域日益发挥出重要作用。本文详细综述了如何利用地震干涉法及台阵处理技术提取出用于研究不同探测尺度（局部、区域、全球）的各类体波信号。其中,地震干涉法通过对地震台站记录到的波形信号进行互相关,抵消掉重合的射线路径,最后得到台站对之间的地震记录;而台阵处理方法是基于接收器台阵发展起来的数据处理手段,该技术不仅能够进一步提高信噪比（SNR）,而且能够获得方位信息。一般来讲,背景噪声中包含的体波信号能量远低于面波信号能量,提取难度大。本文着重介绍了Bin-叠加法、双波束方法（DBF）以及相位加权叠加法（PWS）,并对3种方法的适用条件进行了总结。      

Rayleigh wave separation using high-resolution time-frequency polarization filter

Obtaining geological information from seismic data motivates researchers to innovate and improve seismic wave processing tools. Polarization-based methods have received much attention regarding their ability to discriminate between different phases of the seismic wave based on polarity. Combining the intuitive definition of polarity in the frequency domain (monochromatic waves) with the non-stationary properties provided by time-domain methods, time-frequency approaches are attracting widespread interest because they localize the information extracted from the seismic waves in the joint time and frequency domains. Due to the lack of high-resolution time-frequency maps, the time-frequency polarization approach was not able to resolve specific temporal polarity changes in the seismic signal. The main objective of this study was to devise a robust time-frequency-based polarization filtering method using high-resolution polarization attributes obtained directly from the sparse time-frequency map without using Eigen analysis or analytic signals. The method proposed here utilizes a computationally effective sparsity-based adaptive S-transform to obtain a high-resolution polarization map of an inherently non-stationary seismogram for the entire frequency content of the signal at different times. The superiority of the proposed method over the S-transform method was verified using synthetic and real data sets to calculate the polarization attributes in the time-frequency domain and separate the Rayleigh waves from the seismogram.     

复杂地表边界元-体积元波动方程数值模拟

复杂近地表引起来自深部构造的地震反射信号振幅和相位的异常变化,是影响复杂近地表地区地震资料品质的主要原因.本文采用边界元-体积元方法,通过求解含复杂地表的波动积分方程,来模拟地震波在复杂近地表构造中的传播.其中,边界元法模拟地形起伏和表层地质结构对地震波传播的影响;体积元法模拟起伏地表下非均质低降速层的影响.与其他数值...     

Retrieval of local surface wave velocities from traffic noise – an example from the La Barge basin (Wyoming)

In regions where active source seismic exploration is constrained by limitations of energy penetration and recovery, cost and logistical concerns, or regulatory restrictions, analysis of natural source seismic data may provide an alternative. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of using locally‐generated seismic noise in the 2–6 Hz band to obtain a subsurface model via interferometric analysis. We apply this technique to three‐component data recorded during the La Barge Passive Seismic Experiment, a local deployment in south‐western Wyoming that recorded continuous seismic data between November 2008 and June 2009. We find traffic noise from a nearby state road to be the dominant source of surface waves recorded on the array and observe surface wave arrivals associated with this source up to distances of 5 kms. The orientation of the road with respect to the deployment ensures a large number of stationary points, leading to clear observations on both in‐line and cross‐line virtual source‐receiver pairs. This results in a large number of usable interferograms, which in turn enables the application of standard active source processing methods like signal processing, common offset stacking and traveltime inversion. We investigate the dependency of the interferograms on the amount of data, on a range of processing parameters and on the choice of the interferometry algorithm. The obtained interferograms exhibit a high signal‐to‐noise ratio on all three components. Rotation of the horizontal components to the radial/transverse direction facilitates the separation of Rayleigh and Love waves. Though the narrow frequency spectrum of the surface waves prevents the inversion for depth‐dependent shear‐wave velocities, we are able to map the arrival times of the surface waves to laterally varying group and phase velocities for both Rayleigh and Love waves. Our results correlate well with the known geological structure. We outline a scheme for obtaining localized surface wave velocities from local noise sources and show how the processing of passive data benefits from a combination with well‐established exploration seismology methods. We highlight the differences with interferometry applied to crustal scale data and conclude with recommendations for similar deployments.     

RESEARCH ON TIME-DISTANCE INTERPRETATION OF MULTIPLES AND GHOSTS BASED ON MARINE SEISMIC DATA

Currently, the study on the active fault in the land areas is relatively mature, while there is still lack of detection and research on active faults in the sea areas. Marine exploration, which is different from land areas, has a prominent problem due to the existence of strong reflecting interfaces such as water surface and seafloor in the sea, thus the recording is often accompanied by interference of multiples on seafloor reflections. In addition, because of the characteristics of marine seismic exploration, the source exciting in the water and the geophone receiving in the water, ghost wave usually can be recorded simultaneously during the reflected wave propagation. This phenomenon makes it difficult to distinguish the effective waves and the noise, and has always plagued the data and seriously affects the quality of records. In the offshore and other regions of complex structures, such as inclined interfaces, it is difficult to eliminate the interference of multiples accurately by traditional multiples suppression methods, which are based on the horizontal interface assumption. This paper combines the sea area seismic data and its acquisition method, uses simplified model to simulate the multiples based on the time-distance analysis of multiples and their ghost wave in inclined interface. The time-distance characteristics of the multiples and their ghost waves from different interfaces(including the inclined interface)are obtained, and they are consistent with the actual records. The multiples time-distance simulation can help to distinguish the causes of reflected waves, summarize the multiple-wave time-distance characteristics from different interfaces(including inclined interfaces), and analyze the relationship between the characteristics of multiple waves and primary waves. In particular, this simulation has a significant effect on characterizing the internal multiples that are difficult to identify due to inconspicuous periodicity and the multiples of the inclined interface which present the phenomenon that the vertex of the time-distance curve is shifted. On this basis, relying on the time-distance analysis of ghost wave, we analyze the travel time difference characteristics between reflected waves and their accompanying ghost waves. The differences of the travel time characteristics of different orders ghost wave and reflected wave are summarized and the symmetry of the travel time difference between inclined interface and horizontal interface of ghost waves and reflected waves is analyzed. We simulate the distraction of the ghost wave event with the event of the reflected wave and analyze the influence of the ghost wave on the sea area seismic records. These results can improve the practical interpretation of seismic data. At last, the time-distance information is used to synthesize sea area seismic records, which can help us carry out the effective data processing and understand the characteristics of the time-distance and velocity of multiples in different interfaces and the layer artifact caused by multiples. This study combines the time-distance simulation of multiples and their ghost wave with conventional seismic data processing to analyze the pre-stack and post-stack features of multiple waves and their ghost waves in the seismic records of the sea area. The results of this study are conducive to the effective identification of multiples in seismic records in the sea, provide a theoretical basis for multi-wave suppression and prediction, and may facilitate the future study of sea-area seismic activity detection.     

Seismic and electromagnetic controlled-source interferometry in dissipative media

Seismic interferometry deals with the generation of new seismic responses by crosscorrelating existing ones. One of the main assumptions underlying most interferometry methods is that the medium is lossless. We develop an ‘interferometry‐by‐deconvolution’ approach which circumvents this assumption. The proposed method applies not only to seismic waves, but to any type of diffusion and/or wave field in a dissipative medium. This opens the way to applying interferometry to controlled‐source electromagnetic (CSEM) data. Interferometry‐by‐deconvolution replaces the overburden by a homogeneous half space, thereby solving the shallow sea problem for CSEM applications. We demonstrate this at the hand of numerically modeled CSEM data.     

局域波分解及其在地震信号时频分析中的应用

讨论非平稳、非线性局域波信号分解方法的物理意义和自适应性,数值实现三种局域波分解算法,研究局域波分解在地震信号时频分析中的应用方法和实践.通过Hilbert变换得到地震信号时频分布特征,与Fourier变换谱物理意义不同.采用一定的计算策略,改善瞬时频率计算精度,突出瞬时频率属性的物理意义;将局域波分解同Wigner分布结合,计算地震信号基于局域波分解的Wigner分布,抑制交叉项.模型和实际地震数据试算结果表明实现算法的正确性和有效性.研究表明：在地震信号时频分析中采用局域波分解求Hilbert谱具有自适应性,时域和频域的分辨率也较高;而基于局域波分解的地震信号Wigner分布,保留Wigner分布优良特性,抑制交叉项方法简单易实现;局域波分解方法适合处理地震信号,值得进一步研究和推广.     

Signal reconstruction of surface waves on SASW measurement using Gaussian Derivative wavelet transform

Surface wave method consists of measurement and processing of the dispersive Rayleigh waves recorded from two or more vertical transducers. The dispersive phase data are inverted and the shear wave velocity versus depth is obtained. However, in case of residual soil, the reliable phase spectrum curve is difficult to be produced. Noises from nature and other human-made sources disturb the generated surface wave data. In this paper, a continuous wavelet transform based on mother wavelet of Gaussian Derivative was used to analyze seismic waves in different frequency and time. Time-frequency wavelet spectrum was employed to localize the interested seismic response spectrum of generated surface waves. It can also distinguish the fundamental mode of the surface wave from the higher modes of reflected body waves. The results presented in this paper showed that the wavelet analysis is able to determine reliable surface wave spectrum of sandy clayey residual soil.     

A comparative study of seismic tomography models of the Chinese continental lithosphere

The Chinese mainland is subject to complicated plate interactions that give rise to its complex structure and tectonics. While several seismic velocity models have been developed for the Chinese mainland, apparent discrepancies exist and, so far, little effort has been made to evaluate their reliability and consistency. Such evaluations are important not only for the application and interpretation of model results but also for future model improvement. To address this problem, here we compare five published shear-wave velocity models with a focus on model consistency. The five models were derived from different datasets and methods (i.e., body waves, surface waves from earthquakes, surface waves from noise interferometry, and full waves) and interpolated into uniform horizontal grids (0.5° × 0.5°) with vertical sampling points at 5 km, 10 km, and then 20 km intervals to a depth of 160 km below the surface, from which we constructed an averaged model (AM) as a common reference for comparative study. We compare both the absolute velocity values and perturbation patterns of these models. Our comparisons show that the models have large (> 4%) differences in absolute values, and these differences are independent of data coverage and model resolution. The perturbation patterns of the models also show large differences, although some of the models show a high degree of consistency within certain depth ranges. The observed inconsistencies may reflect limited model resolution but, more importantly, systematic differences in the datasets and methods employed. Thus, despite several seismic models being published for this region, there is significant room for improvement. In particular, the inconsistencies in both data and methodologies need to be resolved in future research. Finally, we constructed a merged model (ChinaM-S1.0) that incorporates the more robust features of the five published models. As the existing models are constrained by different datasets and methods, the merged model serves as a new type of reference model that incorporates the common features from the joint datasets and methods for the shear-wave velocity structure of the Chinese mainland lithosphere.