Bubbles attenuate elastic waves at seismic frequencies: First experimental evidence

Tisato, Nicola; Quintal, Beatriz; Chapman, Samuel; Podladchikov, Y. Y.; Burg, Jean‐Pierre

doi:10.1002/2015gl063538

Cited by 55 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(49 reference statements)

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“…Thus, using noninstantaneous and instantaneous equilibrium fluid bulk moduli results in attenuation factors which are underestimated to some degree. This was also experimentally observed for gas dissolution‐exsolution by Tisato et al () and recently by Chapman et al () for low‐frequency regimes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

The Effect of Boiling on Seismic Properties of Water‐Saturated Fractured Rock

et al. 2017

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Seismic campaigns for exploring geothermal systems aim at detecting permeable formations in the subsurface and evaluating the energy state of the pore fluids. High‐enthalpy geothermal resources are known to contain fluids ranging from liquid water up to liquid‐vapor mixtures in regions where boiling occurs and, ultimately, to vapor‐dominated fluids, for instance, if hot parts of the reservoir get depressurized during production. In this study, we implement the properties of single‐ and two‐phase fluids into a numerical poroelastic model to compute frequency‐dependent seismic velocities and attenuation factors of a fractured rock as a function of fluid state. Fluid properties are computed while considering that thermodynamic interaction between the fluid phases takes place. This leads to frequency‐dependent fluid properties and fluid internal attenuation. As shown in a first example, if the fluid contains very small amounts of vapor, fluid internal attenuation is of similar magnitude as attenuation in fractured rock due to other mechanisms. In a second example, seismic properties of a fractured geothermal reservoir with spatially varying fluid properties are calculated. Using the resulting seismic properties as an input model, the seismic response of the reservoir is then computed while the hydrothermal structure is assumed to vary over time. The resulting seismograms demonstrate that anomalies in the seismic response due to fluid state variability are small compared to variations caused by geological background heterogeneity. However, the hydrothermal structure in the reservoir can be delineated from amplitude anomalies when the variations due to geology can be ruled out such as in time‐lapse experiments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

The Effect of Boiling on Seismic Properties of Water‐Saturated Fractured Rock

et al. 2017

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“…However, WIGED has not been widely studied and so far the experimental observations and interpretations of Tisato et al . () and Chapman et al . () have not been corroborated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The aim of this study is to complement the work of Tisato et al . () and Chapman et al . () by providing further laboratory measurements of the anomalous frequency‐dependent attenuation using a different type of porous material.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Tisato et al . () proposed wave‐induced gas exsolution–dissolution (WIGED) of pore‐scale bubbles in the liquid phase as another mechanism to explain the frequency‐dependent attenuation measured at seismic frequencies in partially saturated Berea sandstone with air, nitrogen and carbon dioxide as the gas phase. WIGED may explain the frequency‐dependent behaviour observed by Chapman et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Laboratory measurements of seismic attenuation and Young's modulus dispersion in a partially and fully water‐saturated porous sample made of sintered borosilicate glass

Chapman

Quintal

Holliger

et al. 2018

Geophysical Prospecting

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We measured the extensional‐mode attenuation and Young's modulus in a porous sample made of sintered borosilicate glass at microseismic to seismic frequencies (0.05–50 Hz) using the forced oscillation method. Partial saturation was achieved by water imbibition, varying the water saturation from an initial dry state up to ∼99%, and by gas exsolution from an initially fully water‐saturated state down to ∼99%. During forced oscillations of the sample effective stresses up to 10 MPa were applied. We observe frequency‐dependent attenuation, with a peak at 1–5 Hz, for ∼99% water saturation achieved both by imbibition and by gas exsolution. The magnitude of this attenuation peak is consistently reduced with increasing fluid pressure and is largely insensitive to changes in effective stress. Similar observations have recently been attributed to wave‐induced gas exsolution–dissolution. At full water saturation, the left‐hand side of an attenuation curve, with a peak beyond the highest measured frequency, is observed at 3 MPa effective stress, while at 10 MPa effective stress the measured attenuation is negligible. This observation is consistent with wave‐induced fluid flow associated with mesoscopic compressibility contrasts in the sample's frame. These variations in compressibility could be due to fractures and/or compaction bands that formed between separate sets of forced‐oscillation experiments in response to the applied stresses. The agreement of the measured frequency‐dependent attenuation and Young's modulus with the Kramers–Kronig relations and additional data analyses indicate the good quality of the measurements. Our observations point to the complex interplay between structural and fluid heterogeneities on the measured seismic attenuation and they illustrate how these heterogeneities can facilitate the dominance of one attenuation mechanism over another.

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“…Laboratory measurements by Murphy (1982), Murphy (1984), Tisato and Quintal (2013), Amalokwu et al (2014) and Tisato et al (2015) also show that attenuation tends to be sensitive to partial gas saturation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Estimating gas saturation in a thin layer by using frequency‐dependent amplitude versus offset modelling

Jin

Chapman

et al. 2016

Geophysical Prospecting

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Various models have been proposed to link partial gas saturation to seismic attenuation and dispersion, suggesting that the reflection coefficient should be frequency-dependent in many cases of practical importance. Previous approaches to studying this phenomenon have typically been limited to single interface models. Here we propose a modelling technique which allows us to incorporate frequency-dependent reflectivity into convolutional modelling. With this modelling framework, seismic data can be synthesized from well logs of velocity, density, porosity and water saturation. This forward modelling could act as a basis for inversion schemes aimed at recovering gas saturation variations with depth. We present a Bayesian inversion scheme for a simple thin layer case and a particular rock physics model, and show that although the method is very sensitive to prior information and constrains, gas saturation and layer thickness can both theoretically be estimated in the case of interfering reflections.

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Bubbles attenuate elastic waves at seismic frequencies: First experimental evidence

Cited by 55 publications

References 26 publications

The Effect of Boiling on Seismic Properties of Water‐Saturated Fractured Rock

The Effect of Boiling on Seismic Properties of Water‐Saturated Fractured Rock

Laboratory measurements of seismic attenuation and Young's modulus dispersion in a partially and fully water‐saturated porous sample made of sintered borosilicate glass

Estimating gas saturation in a thin layer by using frequency‐dependent amplitude versus offset modelling

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