Patent ID: 9513395
Filing Date: 2016-12-06
CPC Classification: G01V

Claim Text:
1. A method for determining positions and origin times of seismic events occurring in the Earth's subsurface, comprising: generating a one dimensional velocity model of the subsurface by recording travel time of seismic energy between the surface and selected depths in a substantially vertical wellbore; accepting as input to the method signals recorded from a plurality of seismic sensors deployed at or above a subsurface volume of interest, the recorded signals being a physical representation of seismic amplitude with respect to time; inverting the signals using non-linear inversion to obtain an origin time of seismic events in the subsurface and to obtain Thomsen's parameters in formations in the volume of interest; and searching for depths of each of the seismic events by individually searching the depth of each seismic event, the inversion with each incorporated new depth including updating the Thomsen parameters and setting as a limit a minimum value of RMS error.