Prediction of signatures of airgun arrays using dual near-field hydrophones

Successful estimation of airgun-array signatures from near-field measurements depends on the accuracy of poorly controlled model parameters such as the effective sea surface reflection coefficient and source depth. We propose a method for prediction of robust source signatures, which are insensitive to fluctuations of the latter parameters. The method uses vertical pairs of near-field hydrophones to measure near-field pressure and its vertical gradient, combination of which eliminates sea surface reflections from the near-field data. This excludes the uncertainty related to the fluctuating sea state and source depth from the process of inversion of the near-field data for source signature. The method explicitly separates the recorded near-field pressure into its up and down going components, which allows one to measure the effective frequency- and angle-dependent sea surface reflection coefficient right at the source, as well as to estimate the actual source depth. Tests on synthetic and field data demonstrate robust performance of the method.     

Applying a science-forward approach to groundwater regulatory design

Hydrogeology Journal - Groundwater sustainability is challenged by the difference between legal and scientific understanding of groundwater, as well as the lack of focused attention to regulatory...     

Neo-Atlantis: The Netherlands under a 5-m sea level rise

What could happen to the Netherlands if, in 2030, the sea level starts to rise and eventually, after 100 years, a sea level of 5 m above current level would be reached? This question is addressed by studying literature, by interviewing experts in widely differing fields, and by holding an expert workshop on this question. Although most experts believe that geomorphology and current engineering skills would enable the country to largely maintain its territorial integrity, there are reasons to assume that this is not likely to happen. Social processes that precede important political decisions – such as the growth of the belief in the reality of sea level rise and the framing of such decisions in a proper political context (policy window) – evolve slowly. A flood disaster would speed up the decision-making process. The shared opinion of the experts surveyed is that eventually part of the Netherlands would be abandoned.     

Extraction of P-wave reflections from microseisms

The last few years there has been a growing number of body-wave observations in noise records. In 1973, Vinnik conjectured that P-waves would even be the dominant wavemode, at epicentral distances of about 40 degrees and onwards from an oceanic source. At arrays far from offshore storms, surface waves induced by nearby storms would not mask the body-wave signal and hence primarily P-waves would be recorded. We measured at such an array in Egypt and indeed found a large proportion of P-waves. At the same time, a new methodology is under development to characterize the lithosphere below an array of receivers, without active sources or local earthquakes. Instead, transmitted waves are used which are caused by distant sources. These sources may either be transient or more stationary. With this new methodology, called seismic interferometry, reflection responses are extracted from the coda of transmissions. Combining the two developments, it is clear that there is a large potential for obtaining reflection responses from low-frequency noise. A potential practical advantage of using noise instead of earthquake responses would be that an array only needs to be deployed for a few days or weeks instead of months, to gather enough illumination. We used a few days of continuous noise, recorded with an array in the Abu Gharadig basin, Egypt. We split up the record in three distinct frequency bands and in many small time windows. Using array techniques and taking advantage of all three-component recordings, we could unravel the dominant wavemodes arriving in each time window and in each frequency band. The recorded wavemodes, and hence the noise sources, varied significantly per frequency band, and – to a lesser extent – per time window. Primarily P-waves were detected on the vertical component for two of the three frequency bands. For these frequency bands, we only selected the time windows with a favorable illumination. By subsequently, applying seismic interferometry, we retrieved P-wave reflection responses and delineated reflectors in the crust, the Moho and possibly the Lehmann discontinuity.     

Stratigraphic inversion of siliciclastic basin fills: a note on the distinction between supply signals resulting from tectonic and climatic forcing

Rates of accommodation and sediment supply are the principal controls on stacking patterns in siliciclastic basin fills. Stratigraphic inversion is aimed at reconstruction of these controls from the detrital record. Efforts to ‘explain’ siliciclastic basin fills have been focused on analysis and numerical modelling of sequence geometry in response to changes in accommodation, whereas comparatively few studies have attempted to address the role of sediment supply. The compositional and textural properties of siliciclastic basin fills are linked with the evolution of drainage basins through the principle of climatic–physiographic control of sediment production and supply. Application of this principle leads to a method of compositional analysis for distinguishing sequences controlled by high-frequency changes in the rate of accommodation from sequences controlled by high-frequency variations in the rate of sediment supply (order of 10 kyr). This method does not require detailed time control. Changes in rate and type of sediment supplied to depositional systems in response to environmental perturbations in drainage basins are explored in greater detail by means of a numerical model of sediment production under various scenarios of climatic and tectonic forcing. Simulation experiments suggest that drainage basins respond differently to high-frequency tectonic and climatic perturbations. Synthetic time series of cyclically forced sediment production display different types of asymmetric variations in grain size, accumulation rate and residence time of sediments in response to tectonic and climatic forcing. The results also highlight the role of vegetation as the principal modulator of climate forcing, and show that the nonlinear response to climate change may frustrate any attempts at providing broad generalizations of the system's responses. The modelling results confirm the usefulness of a combined analysis of sediment composition and sequence geometry, and the mathematically rich behaviour of the system suggests that further development of this approach is likely to increase our ability to reconstruct forcing mechanisms and initial boundary conditions from the detrital record.     

Research Note: Sparsity‐Aware Multiple Microseismic Event Localization Blind to the Source Time‐Function

We consider the problem of simultaneously estimating three parameters of multiple microseimic events, i.e., the hypocenter, moment tensor, and origin time. This problem is of great interest because its solution could provide a better understanding of reservoir behavior and can help to optimize the hydraulic fracturing process. The existing approaches employing spatial source sparsity have advantages over traditional full‐wave inversion‐based schemes; however, their validity and accuracy depend on the knowledge of the source time‐function, which is lacking in practical applications. This becomes even more challenging when multiple microseimic sources appear simultaneously. To cope with this shortcoming, we propose to approach the problem from a frequency‐domain perspective and develop a novel sparsity‐aware framework that is blind to the source time‐function. Through our simulation results with synthetic data, we illustrate that our proposed approach can handle multiple microseismic sources and can estimate their hypocenters with an acceptable accuracy. The results also show that our approach can estimate the normalized amplitude of the moment tensors as a by‐product, which can provide worthwhile information about the nature of the sources.     

Internet of Things‐based wireless networking for seismic applications

There is growing pressure from regulators on operators to adhere to increasingly stricter regulations related to the environment and safety. Hence, operators are required to predict and contain risks related to hydrocarbon production and their infrastructure in order to maintain their licence to operate. A deeper understanding of production optimisation and production‐related risk requires strengthened knowledge of reservoir behaviour and overburden dynamics. To accomplish this, sufficient temporal and spatial resolution is required as well as an integration of various sources of measurements. At the same time, tremendous developments are taking place in sensors, networks, and data analysis technologies. Sensors and accompanying channels are getting smaller and cheaper, and yet they offer high fidelity. New ecosystems of ubiquitous wireless communications including Internet of Things nowadays allow anyone to affordably connect to the Internet at any time and anywhere. Recent advances in cloud storage and computing combined with data analytics allow fast and efficient solutions to handle considerable amounts of data. This paper is an effort to pave the way for exploiting these three fundamental advances to create Internet of Things‐based wireless networks of seismic sensors. To this aim, we propose to employ a recently developed Internet of Things‐based wireless technology, so‐called low‐power wide‐area networks, to exploit their long range, low power, and inherent compatibility to cloud storage and computing. We create a remotely operated minimum‐maintenance wireless solution for four major seismic applications of interest. By proposing appropriate network architecture and data coordination (aggregation and transmission) designs, we show that neither the low data rate nor the low duty cycle of low‐power wide‐area networks imposes fundamental issues in handling a considerable amount of data created by complex seismic scenarios as long as the application is delay tolerant. In order to confirm this claim, we cast our ideas into a practical large‐scale networking design for simultaneous seismic monitoring and interferometry and carry out an analysis on the data generation and transmission rates. Finally, we present some results from a small‐scale field test in which we have employed our Internet of Things‐based wireless nodes for real‐time seismic quality control over clouds.