Determination, interpretation and correction for seismic anisotropy

Summary

Most seismic processing techniques do not incorporate anisotropy in practise because of the difficulty in determining the degree of anisotropy of the underlying rocks and correcting for their effects.

However, in sedimentary rock types of interest to exploration geophysicists there may be significant anisotropy, which must be taken into account to correctly position reflectors to their true geometrical position in space. Otherwise errors in depth estimation and lateral drilling will lead to poor reservoir volume estimation and drill target mis-location.

This study developed accurate anisotropic inversion techniques for recovering average and interval elastic parameters in layered transversely isotropic media.  These elastic parameters are needed to quantify the strength of the anisotropy and account for its effect when processing seismic data.

A Kirchhoff anisotropic migration program was developed which produces an accurate image of reflectors in the presence of anisotropy.

Keywords: anisotropy, migration, seismic processing