CREWES Research Report 2000Volume 12

Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology

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Production manager: Henry BlandProduction assistants: Mark Kirtland, Joanie WhittemoreCover photos: Turner Valley Pump-jack – Henry Bland Raytracing graphic – Dr. Gary Margrave

Copyright 2000 by The University of Calgary.Copyright 2000 by The Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology.

Department of Geology and Geophysics, 2500 University Drive, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4.

Phone: (403) 220-8279. Fax: (403) 284-0074.Email: crewesinfo@crewes.org

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission.

Printed in Canada.

PrefaceJust a few months ago, the excitement and anxiety of the changing millennium was

upon us. And before that, the price of hydrocarbons was at a barrel-bottom low. Fortunately, no great disruptions or apocalypses occurred on January 1, 2000: the stock market soared as did oil prices. Those of us associated with hydrocarbon exploration (who don’t have to drive too far) are largely enjoying the price of natural gas and oil. Interest in geophysics is high and we are even seeing the blossoming of newspaper advertisements for geophysicists! Volatile times. Interestingly, there are precious few new geophysics graduates (Canada-wide, about four times as many geophysics students graduated in spring 1985 as compared to 2000). In addition, industry oscillation and consolidation has been difficult for many professionals, as with contractors and university consortia. Nonetheless, demand for hydrocarbons is increasing, but with additional emphasis on corporate efficiency, professional productivity, and reduced environmental impact.

University-industry projects, such as CREWES, are attempting to provide professional stability as well as technical and educational opportunities for geoscientists. Continuing education is critical in geophysics where the average age of local professionals is 45 years (young, we trust). An exciting and useful education is also crucial in attracting and keeping the interest of agile young minds. And continued resource discovery and recovery needs new and better technology. In line with changing times and personnel, CREWES has expanded its interests with new field studies and topics. The subject list from the Abstract volume of the 2000 SEG Meeting in Calgary shows which fields garnered the most papers: migration, inversion, attributes, multicomponent seismic, signal processing, 3-D seismic, interpretation, and time-lapse analysis. We are happy to be working in all of these fields.

My fellow CREWES faculty are enormously productive and delightful colleagues: thank you Drs. Gary Margrave, Don Lawton, Larry Lines, Jim Brown, Larry Bentley, John Bancroft, and Rudi Meyer. Of course, our students have contributed a great deal of effort and creativity to the work documented here. In addition, the CREWES staff do an outstanding job in supporting and managing a perpetually “evolving” research and educational flow. Much appreciation to Henry Bland, Louise Forgues, Eric Gallant, Hanxing Lu, Brian Hoffe, Mark Kirtland, Dave Henley, Pat Daley, Joanie Whittemore, Ayon Dey, Zhengsheng Yao, and Chuck Ursenbach. Thus, this document is a collaborative effort from a great many people who are striving to make a real advancement in geophysics.

Finally, we sincerely thank our CREWES sponsorship for making this work possible. We understand that research and education can often be overwhelmed by the daily demands of a busy industry. We greatly appreciate your partnership and look forward to a continued and prosperous collaboration.

Calgary, Alberta Robert R. Stewart,November, 2000 Director of CREWES

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Table of ContentsPage

Preface...................................................................................................iiiTable of Contents...................................................................................vCREWES Sponsors for 2000................................................................ixCREWES Personnel..............................................................................xi

Borehole1 Single-well imaging using the full waveform of an acoustic sonic...................1

Louis Chabot, David C. Henley and R. James Brown

2 Proposed design for a new borehole elastic imaging tool................................11Robert R. Stewart and Carlos Nieto

3 Direct traveltime inversion of VSP data for....................................................19elliptical anisotropy in layered mediaR. James Brown, Michael P. Lamoureux, Michael A. Slawinski and Raphaël A. Slawinski

4 Multicomponent VSP and lake-bottom cable surveys:....................................35Pike's Peak, SaskatchewanRobert R. Stewart, Laurence R. Lines and Lawrence E. Mewhort

5 Simultaneous anisotropic prestack depth migration of P-S VSP.....................43and surface seismic dataM. Graziella Kirtland Grech and Don C. Lawton

Acquisition6 Conversion point mapping and interpolation in P-S survey design.................53

Don C. Lawton and Peter W. Cary

7 An acquisition polarity standard for multicomponent seismic data.................63R. James Brown, Robert R. Stewart, James E. Gaiser and Don C. Lawton

8 Noise suppression on geophone data using microphone measurements.........81Ayon K. Dey, Robert R. Stewart, Laurence R. Lines and Henry C. Bland

Numerical Modelling9 New seismic modelling facilities in MATLAB...............................................93

Gary F. Margrave

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10 Elastic finite difference modelling with stability...........................................139and dispersion correctionsPeter M. Manning and Gary F. Margrave

11 Elastic wavefield modelling in 3D by the......................................................157Fourth-order staggered finite-difference techniqueZengsheng Yao and Gary F. Margrave

12 Tutorial: Hybrid finite difference - finite.......................................................167transform methods for hyperbolic partial differential equationsP.F. Daley

13 Traveltime computation through isotropic media via....................................181the eikonal equationMarco A. Perez and John C. Bancroft

14 P-S polarity reversal: is it always at zero-offset?...........................................201M. Graziella Kirtland Grech, Don C. Lawton, Robert R. Stewart, Saul Guevara and Gary F. Margrave

Processing15 Source-geophone azimuth from 3-C seismic polarization.............................207

Saul Guevara and Robert R. Stewart

16 Noise alignment in trim statics......................................................................217Charles P. Ursenbach and John C. Bancroft

17 Distinguishing noise alignment from signal..................................................229alignment in statics calculationsCharles P. Ursenbach

18 Residual statics analysis by LSQR................................................................245Yan Yan, Zhengsheng Yao, Gary F. Margrave and R. James Brown

19 Vibroseis deconvolution: a synthetic comparison of.....................................257cross correlation and frequency domain sweep deconvolutionKatherine Brittle, Laurence R. Lines and Ayon K. Dey

20 Wavefront healing operators for improving reflection coherence.................267David C. Henley

21 More radial trace domain applications...........................................................285David C. Henley

22 Multiple attenuation via predictive deconvolution........................................299in the radial domainMarco A. Perez and David C. Henley

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23 Wavelet transform filtering of seismic data by..............................................319semblance weightingVictor Iliescu and Gary F. Margrave

24 Operator aliasing heuristics............................................................................347John C. Bancroft

25 Complex seismic trace analysis and its application.......................................355to time-lapse seismic surveysJohn Zhang and Laurence R. Bentley

26 Conversion coefficients at a liquid/solid interface.........................................375P.F. Daley

27 Up and down wave separation of multicomponent data................................383at the ocean bottomChanpen Silawongsawat and Gary F. Margrave

28 Suppression of multiples by wavefield separation techniques......................395Yan Yan and R. James Brown

29 A SEG-Y file I/O toolbox for Matlab............................................................405Henry C. Bland and Paul R. MacDonald

Imaging and Migration30 A Fortran 90 implementation of symmetric...................................................419

nonstationary phaseshift extrapolatorYanpeng Mi and Gary F. Margrave

31 A Pade approximation to the scalar wavefield..............................................425extrapolator for inhomogeneous mediaYanpeng Mi, Zhengsheng Yao and Gary F. Margrave

32 Dual extrapolation algorithms towards optimum efficiency and accuracy. . .435Yanpeng Mi, Gary F. Margrave and Zhengsheng Yao

33 Wavefield extrapolation by windowed nonstationary phase shift.................449Zhengsheng Yao, Yanpeng Mi and Gary F. Margrave

34 Prestack considerations for the migration of oblique reflectors....................461John C. Bancroft and Charles P. Ursenbach

35 Harsh imaging techniques for shallow high resolution seismic data.............471David C. Henley

36 Amplitude scaling for AVO analysis of CSP gathers....................................489Shuang Sun and John C. Bancroft

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37 A study of imaging with a synthetic Foothills dataset...................................501Han-xing Lu and Gary F. Margrave

Case Studies38 Review of Pikes Peak project........................................................................509

Laurence R. Lines

39 Acquisition and processing of the Pikes Peak 3C-2D seismic survey...........511Brian H. Hoffe, Malcolm B. Bertram, Henry C. Bland, Eric V. Gallant, Laurence R. Lines and Lawrence E. Mewhort

40 Preliminary results of the AVO analysis at Pikes Peak.................................523Jonathan E. Downton and Laurence R. Lines

41 Seismic inversion at Pikes Peak, Saskatchewan............................................533Ian A. Watson and Laurence R. Lines

42 3D structural effects in the 3C-2D Stolberg seismic profiles........................539Han-xing Lu, Gary F. Margrave and Robert R. Stewart

43 Preliminary multicomponent seismic analysis over......................................551the Steen River structure, northern AlbertaRobert R. Stewart, Michael J. Mazur and Alan R. Hildebrand

44 Seismic measurement of the propagation speed of a.....................................557fracture through a weak snowpack layerBen Johnson, Bruce Jamieson and Robert R. Stewart

45 Seismic tomography of a Maya pyramid: Chan Chich, Belize......................563Chuandong Xu and Robert R. Stewart

46 AVO for Managers: Pitfalls and solutions.....................................................577Jonathan E. Downton, Brian H. Russell and Laurence R. Lines

47 The AVO modelling volume.........................................................................599Brian H. Russell, Laurence R. Lines, Keith W. Hirsche and Janusz Peron

48 Converted-wave seismic exploration: Applications......................................611Robert R. Stewart, James E. Gaiser, R. James Brown and Don C. Lawton

49 Fluid flow modelling with seismic cluster analysis.......................................633Laurence R. Bentley, Xuri Huang and Claude Laflamme

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2000 CREWES SPONSORS

AEC Oil and Gas

BP

Chevron Petroleum Technology

Conoco Inc.

ExxonMobil Upstream Research

Husky Energy Inc.

Input/Output, Inc.

Japan National Oil Corporation

Landmark Graphics Corporation

Marathon Oil Company

Norsk Hydro AS

Numac Energy Inc.

PDVSA-Intevep

PGS Reservoir AS

PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd.

Petro-Canada

Petrobras

Phillips Petroleum Company

Saudi Aramco

Schlumberger Geco-Prakla

Seismic Image Software Ltd.

Seismic Micro-Technology, Inc.

Sensor Geophysical Ltd.

Shell Canada Limited

Unocal Corporation

Veritas GeoServices

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)- Collaborative Research and Development Grant

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CREWES PERSONNEL

DIRECTORS

Robert R. StewartB.Sc. Physics and Mathematics, 1978, University of TorontoPh.D. Geophysics, 1983, Massachusetts Institute of Technology• Work Experience: Chevron Oil Field Research Company, Arco Exploration and

Production Research Centre, Chevron Geosciences Company, Veritas Software Ltd., Genix Technology Ltd.

Gary F. MargraveB.Sc. Physics, 1975, University of UtahM.Sc. Physics, 1977, University of UtahPh.D. Geophysics, 1981, University of Alberta• Chevron Canada Resources, Chevron Geoscience Company

Larry R. LinesB.Sc. Physics, 1971, University of AlbertaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1973, University of AlbertaPh.D. Geophysics, 1976, University of B.C.• Amoco Production Research, Tulsa University, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Don C. LawtonB.Sc. (Hons. Class I) Geology, 1973, University of AucklandPh.D. Geophysics, 1979, University of Auckland• New Zealand Steel Mining Ltd., Amoco Minerals (N.Z.) Ltd.

ASSOCIATED FACULTY

John C. BancroftB.Sc. Electrical Engineering, 1970, University of Calgary M.Sc. Electrical Engineering, 1972, University of CalgaryPh.D. Electrical Engineering, 1975, Brigham Young University• Geo-X Systems Ltd., Veritas Software Ltd., Ulterra Geoscience Ltd.

R. James BrownB.Sc. (Hons.) Physics and Mathematics, 1965, University of ManitobaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1968, University of ManitobaPh.D. Seismology, 1972, Uppsala University, Sweden• University of Manitoba, Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR), University of Luleå,

Sweden, University of Sydney, Australia

Larry R. BentleyB.A. Physics, 1971, Hamilton CollegeM.Sc. Geology and Geophysics, 1974, University of HawaiiPh.D. Civil Engineering, 1990, Princeton University• Western Geophysical Company, University of Vermont, University of Calgary

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Rudi MeyerB.A. Geology, 1975, Lawrence University, AppletonM.Sc. Structual Geology, 1983, Michigan State UniversityPh.D. Clastic Reservoir Sedimentology, 1998, University of Calgary• Ministry of Energy & Mines, Venezuela, Lagoven, S.A, University of Calgary

RESEARCH and ADMINISTRATION STAFF

Henry C. BlandB.Sc. Electrical Engineering, 1990, University of Calgary

Patrick F. DaleyB.Sc. Mathematics, 1974, University of AlbertaPh.D. Geophysics, 1979, University of Alberta• Independent contractor associated with research centers of major oil companies in the

U.S.

Ayon K. DeyB.Sc. Applied Mathematics, 1996, Memorial University of NewfoundlandM.Sc. Geophysics, 1999, University of Calgary

I. Louise ForguesBusiness Administration Certificate, 1984, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology• Kenting Exploration Services Limited, Gale Resources Ltd.

Eric V. GallantJourneyman Interprovincial Ticket in Electrical Construction, 1976, Cape Breton Institute

of Technology• IBEW, University of Calgary

David C. HenleyB.Sc. Physics, 1967, Colorado State UniversityM.Sc. Physics, 1968, University of Michigan• Shell Oil Co., Shell Canada Ltd.

Brian H. HoffeB.Sc. Geology/Geophysics, 1985, Memorial University of NewfoundlandM.Sc. Geophysics, 1996, Memorial University of Newfoundland• Petro-Canada Resources Ltd., Memorial University of Newfoundland

Mark KirtlandB.A. Anthropology and Geography, 1994, Oxford Brookes University, UKProgrammer Analyst, CDI College, Calgary• Bodleian Library, Oxford University, UK

Han-xing LuB.Sc. (equivalent) Physics, 1967, Fu Dan University, Shanghai, ChinaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1982, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of Geophysics,

Beijing, China• Institute of Geophysics, Beijing, China, Memorial University of Newfoundland

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Charles P. UrsenbachB.Sc. (Hons.) Chemical Physics, 1987, University of CalgaryPh.D. Theoretical Chemistry, 1992, University of British Columbia• Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

Joanie WhittemoreB.Sc., Geophysics, 2000, University of Calgary• NCE Resources Group Inc.

Zhengsheng YaoB.Sc. Physics, 1981, Anhui Labour University, ChinaM.Sc. Seismology, 1984, State Seismological Bureau, ChinaPh.D. Geophysics, 1998, Uppsala University, Sweden• Uppsala University, Sweden, Lanzhou Seismological Institute, China,

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Katherine F. BrittleB.Sc. Geological Engineering, 1999, University of Waterloo

Louis ChabotB.Eng., 1984, McGill UniversityM.Eng., 1992, McGill University• Quebec Ministry of the Environment

Maria S. DonatiB.Sc. Physics, 1988, Simon Bolivar University, VenezuelaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1996, University of Calgary• Seismoven C.A. (SSC), PDVSA-Intevep, Venezuela

Jonathan E. DowntonB.Sc. (Hons.)Geophysics, 1985, University of Alberta• Landmark ITA, Integra Scott Pickford

Pavan K. ElapavuluriB.Sc. Math Physics, 1996, Nagarjuna University, IndiaM.Sc. Applied Geophysics, 2000, Indian School of Mines

Jeffrey P. GrossmanB.Sc. Mathematics, 1996, University of CalgaryM.Sc. Mathematics, 1999, University of Calgary• Geomatics Project, University of Calgary

Saul E. GuevaraB.Sc. Engineering, 1984, National University of Colombia• Ecopetrol, ICP, Columbia

Victor IliescuB.Sc. Geophysics, 1992, University of Bucharest, Romania• Continental Laboratories Ltd., Mcleay Geological Consultants Ltd.

Peter M. ManningB.Sc. Mathematics, 1961, University of British Columbia• Mobil Oil Canada

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Michael J. MazurB.Sc. Astrophysics, 1995, University of CalgaryM.Sc. Geophysics, 1999, University of Calgary

Yanpeng MiB.Sc. Geology, 1995, Peking University, ChinaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1998, University of Victoria• Qi Tian Energy Inc.

Carlos E. NietoB.Eng. Geoph. Eng., 1999, Universidad Central de Venezuela• Suelopetrol, C.A.S.A.C.A.

Marco A. PerezB.Sc. Physics, 1999, McGill University

Brian H. RussellB.Sc., 1972, University of SaskatchewanM.Sc, 1978, University of Durham, UK• Chevron Corporation, Veritas Seismic Software Ltd., Hampson-Russell Software Ltd.

Chanpen SilawongsawatB.Sc. Physics, 1993, Chiang Mai University, ThailandM.Sc. Geophysics, 1998, University of Calgary

Shuang SunB.Sc. Environmental Science, 1994, Northeast Normal University, China• Changchun Petroleum Company, China

Alexandru VantB.Sc. 1999, University of Bucharest• Belevion Group, Bucharest

Graeme D. WarrenB.Sc. Geol. Eng., 1989, University of British Columbia• Geo-X Systems Ltd., Union Pacific Resources Inc.

Ian A. WatsonB.Sc. Geol. Eng. 1995, Queen’s University• Imperial Oil Limited

Chuandong XuB.Sc. Geophysics, 1990, Petroleum University, East China• China Offshore Oil Logging Corporation

Yan YanB.Sc. Geophysics, 1990, Petroleum University of China• Xinjiang Petroleum Exploration Company, Seismic Data Processing Center, China

Jianli YangB.Sc. 1997, University of Petroleum (East China)M.Sc. 2000, University of Petroleum (Beijing)

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John J. ZhangB.Sc. 1985, Wuhan College of Geology, China`M.Sc. 1988, China University of Geosciences• China University of Geosciences, Acme Analytical Labs Ltd.

Hongbo ZhangB.Sc. Eng., 1996, Petroleum University of China (Dongying, Shandong)• China Offshore Oil Corporation

Ye ZhengB.Sc. Explosion Mechanics, 1982, University of Science and Technology of ChinaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1988, University of Science and Technology of ChinaM.Sc. Geophysics, 1995, University of Calgary• Institute of Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, University of

Manitoba, Veritas GeoServices

Ying ZouB.Sc., University of Science and Technology of ChinaM.Ph., University of Luton, UK• Institute of Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Science, Veritas GeoServices,

Kelman Seismic Processing

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