Seismic anisotropy of shales

Shales are a major component of sedimentary basins, and they play a decisive role in fluid flow and seismic‐wave propagation because of their low permeability and anisotropic microstructure. Shale anisotropy needs to be quantified to obtain reliable information on reservoir fluid, lithology and pore pressure from seismic data, and to understand time‐to‐depth conversion errors and non‐hyperbolic moveout. A single anisotropy parameter, Thomsen's δ parameter, is sufficient to explain the difference between the small‐offset normal‐moveout velocity and vertical velocity, and to interpret the small‐offset AVO response. The sign of this parameter is poorly understood, with both positive and negative values having been reported in the literature. δ is sensitive to the compliance of the contact regions between clay particles and to the degree of disorder in the orientation of clay particles. If the ratio of the normal to shear compliance of the contact regions exceeds a critical value, the presence of these regions acts to increase δ, and a change in the sign of δ, from the negative values characteristic of clay minerals to the positive values commonly reported for shales, may occur. Misalignment of the clay particles can also lead to a positive value of δ. For transverse isotropy, the elastic anisotropy parameters can be written in terms of the coefficients W₂₀₀ and W₄₀₀ in an expansion of the clay‐particle orientation distribution function in generalized Legendre functions. For a given value of W₂₀₀, decreasing W₄₀₀ leads to an increase in δ, while for fixed W₄₀₀, δ increases with increasing W₂₀₀. Perfect alignment of clay particles with normals along the symmetry axis corresponds to the maximum values of W₂₀₀ and W₄₀₀, given by and . A comparison of the predictions of the theory with laboratory measurements shows that most shales lie in a region of the (W₂₀₀, W₄₀₀)‐plane defined by W₄₀₀/W₂₀₀≤W^max₄₀₀/W^max₂₀₀ .