Some practical aspects of prestack waveform inversion using a genetic algorithm: An example from the east Texas Woodbine gas sand

Journal Article · Mon Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1999 · Geophysics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1190/1.1444538· OSTI ID:343768

Mallick, S ^[1]

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1. Western Geophysical, Houston, TX (United States)

In this paper, a prestack inversion method using a genetic algorithm (GA) is presented, and issues relating to the implementation of prestack GA inversion in practice are discussed. GA is a Monte-Carlo type inversion, using a natural analogy to the biological evolution process. When GA is cast into a Bayesian framework, a priori information of the model parameters and the physics of the forward problem are used to compute synthetic data. These synthetic data can then be matched with observations to obtain approximate estimates of the marginal a posteriori probability density (PPD) functions in the model space. Plots of these PPD functions allow an interpreter to choose models which best describe the specific geologic setting and lead to an accurate prediction of seismic lithology. Poststack inversion and prestack GA inversion were applied to a Woodbine gas sand data set from East Texas. A comparison of prestack inversion with poststack inversion demonstrates that prestack inversion shows detailed stratigraphic features of the subsurface which are not visible on the poststack inversion.

• OSTI ID: 343768
• Journal Information: Geophysics, Journal Name: Geophysics Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 64; ISSN GPYSA7; ISSN 0016-8033
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
ALGORITHMS
CALCULATION METHODS
DATA ANALYSIS
LITHOLOGY
NATURAL GAS DEPOSITS
SEISMIC SURVEYS
TEXAS