All methods of seismic characterization of fractured reservoirs are based on effective media theories that relate geometrical and material properties of fractures and surrounding rock to the effective stiffnesses. In exploration seismology, the first-order theory of Hudson is the most popular. It describes the effective model caused by the presence of a single set of thin, aligned vertical fractures in otherwise isotropic rock. This model is known to be transversely isotropic with a horizontal symmetry axis (HTI). Following the theory, one can invert the effective anisotropy for the crack density and type of fluid infill of fractures, the quantities of great importance for reservoir appraisal and management.Here I compute effective media numerically using the finite element method. I deliberately construct models that contain a single set of vertical, ellipsoidal, non-intersecting and non-interconnected fractures to check validity of the first-order Hudson’s theory and establish the limits of its applicability. Contrary to conventional wisdom that Hudson’s results are accurate up to crack density e ≈ 0.1, I show that they consistently overestimate the magnitudes of all effective anisotropic coefficients ε(V), δ(V), and γ(V). Accuracy of theoretically derived anisotropy depends on the type of fluid infill and typically deteriorates as e grows. While the theory gives | ε(V)|, |δ(V)|, |γ(V)| and close to the upper bound of the corresponding numerically obtained values for randomly distributed liquid-filled fractures, theoretical predictions of ε(V), δ(V) are not supported by numerical computations when the cracks are dry. This happens primarily because the first-order Hudson’s theory makes no attempt to account for fracture interaction which contributes to the final result much stronger for gas- than for liquid-filled cracks. I find that Mori-Tanaka’s theory is superior to Hudson’s for all examined crack densities and both types of fluid infill.The paper was presented at the 11th International Workshop on Seismic Anisotropy (11IWSA) held in St. John’s, Canada in 2004. 相似文献
The delivery of volcanogenic sulphur into the upper atmosphere by explosive eruptions is known to cause significant temporary climate cooling. Therefore, phreatomagmatic and phreatoplinian eruptions occurring during the final rifting stages of active flood basalt provinces provide a potent mechanism for triggering climate change.
During the early Eocene, the northeast Atlantic margin was subjected to repeated ashfall for 0.5 m.y. This was the result of extensive phreatomagmatic activity along 3000 km of the opening northeast Atlantic rift. These widespread, predominantly basaltic ashes are now preserved in marine sediments of the Balder Formation and its equivalents, and occur over an area extending from the Faroe Islands to Denmark and southern England. These ash-bearing sediments also contain pollen and spore floras derived from low diversity forests that grew in cooler, drier climates than were experienced either before or after these highly explosive eruptions. In addition, coeval plant macrofossil evidence from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, also shows a comparable pattern of vegetation change. The coincidence of the ashes and cooler climate pollen and spore floras in northwest Europe identifies volcanism as the primary cause of climate cooling. Estimates show that whilst relatively few phreatomagmatic eruptive centres along the 3000 km opening rift system could readily generate 0.5–1 °C cooling, on an annual basis, only persistent or repeated volcanic phases would have been able to achieve the long-term cooling effect observed in the floral record. We propose that the cumulative effect of repeated Balder Formation eruptions initiated a biodiversity crisis in the northeast Atlantic margin forests. Only the decline of this persistent volcanic activity, and the subsequent climatic warming at the start of the Eocene Thermal Maximum allowed the growth of subtropical forests to develop across the region. 相似文献
An innovative approach for regionalizing the 3‐D effective porosity field is presented and applied to two large, overexploited, and deeply weathered crystalline aquifers located in southern India. The method derives from earlier work on regionalizing a 2‐D effective porosity field in that part of an aquifer where the water table fluctuates, which is now extended over the entire aquifer using a 3‐D approach. A method based on geological and geophysical surveys has also been developed for mapping the weathering profile layers (saprolite and fractured layers). The method for regionalizing 3‐D effective porosity combines water table fluctuation and groundwater budget techniques at various cell sizes with the use of satellite‐based data (for groundwater abstraction), the structure of the weathering profile, and geostatistical techniques. The approach is presented in detail for the Kudaliar watershed (983 km2) and tested on the 730 km2 Anantapur watershed. At watershed scale, the effective porosity of the aquifer ranges from 0.5% to 2% in Kudaliar and between 0.3% and 1% in Anantapur, which agrees with earlier works. Results show that (a) depending on the geology and on the structure of the weathering profile, the vertical distribution of effective porosity can be very different and that the fractured layers in crystalline aquifers are not necessarily characterized by a rapid decrease in effective porosity and (b) that the lateral variations in effective porosity can be larger than the vertical ones. These variations suggest that within a same weathering profile, the density of open fractures and/or degree of weathering in the fractured zone may significantly vary from a place to another. The proposed method provides information on the spatial distribution of effective porosity that is of prime interest in terms of flux and contaminant transport in crystalline aquifers. Implications for mapping groundwater storage and scarcity are also discussed, which should help in improving groundwater resource management strategies. 相似文献
The effective stress concept for solid‐fluid 2‐phase media was revisited in this work. In particular, the effects of the compressibility of both the pore fluid and the soil particles were studied under 3 different conditions, i.e., undrained, drained, and unjacketed conditions based on a Biot‐type theory for 2‐phase porous media. It was confirmed that Terzaghi effective stress holds at the moment when soil grains are assumed to be incompressible and when the compressibility of the pore fluid is small enough compared to that of the soil skeleton. Then, isotropic compression tests for dry sand under undrained conditions were conducted within the triaxial apparatus in which the changes in the pore air pressure could be measured. The ratio of the increment in the cell pressure to the increment in the pore air pressure, m, corresponds to the inverse of the B value by Bishop and was obtained during the step loading of the cell pressure. In addition, the m values were evaluated by comparing them with theoretically obtained values based on the solid‐fluid 2‐phase mixture theory. The experimental m values were close to the theoretical values, as they were in the range of approximately 40 to 185, depending on the cell pressure. Finally, it was found that the soil material with a highly compressible pore fluid, such as air, must be analyzed with the multi‐phase porous mixture theory. However, Terzaghi effective stress is practically applicable when the compressibilities of both the soil particles and the pore fluid are small enough compared to that of the soil skeleton. 相似文献