A site-specific rock-physics transform from porosity, mineralogy, and pore fluid to elastic-wave velocities is used to invert seismic amplitude data for clay content, total porosity, and saturation. The implementation is Bayesian and produces probabilistic values of the reservoir properties from seismic measurements and well data. This method focuses on an exploration setting where minimal data exist. Two key assumptions reduce the problem and keep the prior information as noncommittal as possible. First, a prior interpretation of the seismic data is required that provides a geobody on which to perform the inversion. Second, the reservoir thickness is assumed to be constant, as are the rock properties within the reservoir. The prior distributions of the reservoir properties are assumed to be uncorrelated and independent, although this is not an essential assumption. Central to theinversion is the generation of a complete set of earth models derived from the prior distribution. A site-specific rock-physics model translates these properties (clay content, porosity, and saturation) into the elastic domain. A complete set of forward seismic models accompanies the earth models, and these seismic models are compared to the real data on a trace-by-trace basis. The reservoir properties corresponding to the seismic models that match the real data within predefined errors are used to construct the posterior. This method was tested on well and seismic data from offshore western South Africa. Initial results at calibration and test wells indicate an overprediction of porosity and uncertain predictions of clay content and saturation. This is a result of the constant-thickness assumption. However, a highly negative correlation between porosity and thickness is predicted, which manifests the success of this method.

Modeling the elastic properties of clay-bearing rocks (shales) requires thorough knowledge of the mineral constituents, their elastic properties, pore space microstructure, and orientations of clay platelets. Information about these variables and their complex interrelationships is rarely available for real rocks. We theoretically modeled the elastic properties of synthetic clay-water composites compacted in the laboratory, including estimates of pore space topology and percolation behavior. The mineralogy of the samples was known exactly, and the focus was on two monomineralic samples comprised of kaolinite and smectite. We used differential effective medium theory (DEM) and analysis of scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the compacted kaolinite and smectite samples. Percolation behavior was included through calculations of critical porosities from measurements of the liquid limits of the individual clay powders. Quantitative analysis of the SEM images showed that the large scale (>0.1 μm) pore space of the smectite composite had more rounded pores (mean aspect ratio α ¼ 0.55) than the kaolinite composite (mean pore's aspect ratio α ¼ 0.44). However, models that used only these largescale pore shapes could not explain the compressional and shear velocity measurements. DEM simulations with a single pore aspect ratio showed that bulk and shear moduli are controlled by different pore shapes. Conversely, modeling results that combined critical porosity and dual porosity models into DEM theory compared well with the measured bulk and shear moduli of compacting kaolinite and smectite composites. The methods and results we used could be used to model unconsolidated clay-bearing rocks of more complex mineralogy.

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The rapid and nonintrusive deployment of seismic sensors for near-surface geophysical surveys is of interest to make data acquisition efficient and to operate in a wide variety of environmental and surface-terrain conditions. We have developed and compared near-surface data acquired using a traditional vertical geophone array with data acquired using three different fiber optic cables operating in a distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) configuration. The DAS cables included a helically wrapped fiber, a nearly bare single-strand fiber, and an armored single-strand fiber. These three cables are draped on the ground alongside the geophones. Equivalent processing on colocated shot gathers resulted in a high level of similarity, in particular for reflection energy acquired through geophones and the helically wrapped cable. The single-strand fibers indicate much less similarity. Frequency content, however, differs in the raw and processed gathers from the geophones and the fiber optic cables. Nonetheless, results demonstrate that DAS technology can be used successfully to acquire near-surface reflection seismic data by deploying the cables on the surface. Potential applications for this technology include rapid deployment of active and/or passive arrays for near-surface geophysical characterization for various applications at different scales.

Ultrashallow seismic-reflection data were collected at a test site in Great Bend, Kansas. The purpose of the experiment was to image seasonal submeter-scale fluctuations in the water table over a period of one year to identify the factors important in monitoring the water table when using seismic-reflection techniques. The study indicates that detailed velocity information must be used when interpreting water-table levels. Using detailed velocity information as a control when depth-converting the seismic profiles yielded correct positioning of the water table within + or -12 cm at the test site.