Directly imaging steeply-dipping fault zones in geothermal fields with multicomponent seismic data

Chen, Ting; Huang, Lianjie

doi:10.1016/j.geothermics.2015.07.003

Directly imaging steeply-dipping fault zones in geothermal fields with multicomponent seismic data

Journal Article · Thu Jul 30 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Geothermics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2015.07.003· OSTI ID:1224043

Chen, Ting ^[1]; Huang, Lianjie ^[1]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

For characterizing geothermal systems, it is important to have clear images of steeply-dipping fault zones because they may confine the boundaries of geothermal reservoirs and influence hydrothermal flow. Elastic reverse-time migration (ERTM) is the most promising tool for subsurface imaging with multicomponent seismic data. However, conventional ERTM usually generates significant artifacts caused by the cross correlation of undesired wavefields and the polarity reversal of shear waves. In addition, it is difficult for conventional ERTM to directly image steeply-dipping fault zones. We develop a new ERTM imaging method in this paper to reduce these artifacts and directly image steeply-dipping fault zones. In our new ERTM method, forward-propagated source wavefields and backward-propagated receiver wavefields are decomposed into compressional (P) and shear (S) components. Furthermore, each component of these wavefields is separated into left- and right-going, or downgoing and upgoing waves. The cross correlation imaging condition is applied to the separated wavefields along opposite propagation directions. For converted waves (P-to-S or S-to-P), the polarity correction is applied to the separated wavefields based on the analysis of Poynting vectors. Numerical imaging examples of synthetic seismic data demonstrate that our new ERTM method produces high-resolution images of steeply-dipping fault zones.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

OSTI ID:: 1224043

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1247860

Report Number(s):: LA-UR--14-28661; PII: S0375650515000863

Journal Information:: Geothermics, Journal Name: Geothermics Journal Issue: C Vol. 57; ISSN 0375-6505

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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