Structural information derived from ambient noise tomography over a hydrocarbon-producing region in the Cachar fold belt,lower Assam,northeast India

Ambient noise tomography is a powerful tool that has found increasing application in reservoir analysis and imaging. The Cachar fold belt in lower Assam, northeast India encompasses several wells under active hydrocarbon production, along with several dry wells. To overcome the lack of active seismic data over the entire fold belt, a passive seismic study was carried out to image the concealed three-dimensional sub-surface structures. The data were recorded from February to November 2011 by a network of 65 wideband seismometers spanning an area of about 40 × 60 km². The data are crosscorrelated in the 2–5 s band, followed by phase-weighted stacking to estimate noise correlation functions with surface wave signatures. The traveltimes picked from the frequency-time analysis are utilized in a tomographic inversion for Rayleigh wave group velocities. The group velocity anomalies have a lateral resolution of ~ 3.5 × 5.5 km² and variations of up to for each period. The group velocities are in turn inverted for S-wave velocity distribution as a function of depth. The three-dimensional S-wave velocity tomograms reveal the tight anticlines and broad synclines, with high- and low-velocity zones corresponding to structural highs and lows, respectively. The structural interpretation is supported for the part of the region with producing wells and covered by active seismic data, wherein the post-stack time migrated seismic section shows anticlinal and synclinal features similar to those obtained from ambient noise tomography. The structures revealed by ambient noise tomography can help identify zones of interest to be targeted by active seismic surveys in the Cachar fold belt.