an experimental study of the dilation factor dilation factor r is the ratio of relative change in velocity to relative change in deformation strain it has significant implications for 4d seismic studies where it can be used to infer reservoir or overburden thickness changes from seismic changes but the effect of stress on r and its components is not well understood we conduct static strain and ultrasonic velocity measurements to study the effect of stress on r and its components measured absolute r values 6 91 in sandstones and 6 11 in shale depend on the deformation mechanisms causing the strain the dynamic low amplitude young s modulus generally is higher than the static high amplitude young s modulus hence theoretical models that use the same mechanism to describe wave propagation and macroscopic deformation are invalid the ratio of dynamic to static modulus depends on the direction of stress applied with respect to the density and placement of cracks values of r differ for p and s waves especially in the presence of fluids th

systematic comparisons of earthquake source models determined using insar and seismic data abstract robust earthquake source parameters e g location seismic moment fault geometry are essential for reliable seismic hazard assessment and the investigation of large scale tectonics they are routinely estimated using a variety of data and techniques such as seismic data and more recently interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar comparisons between these two datasets are frequently made although not usually in a comprehensive way this review compares source parameters from global and regional seismic catalogues with those from a recent database of insar parameters which has been expanded with 18 additional source models for this study we show that moment magnitude mw estimates agree well between the two datasets with a trend for thrust events modelled using insar to have slightly larger mw estimates earthquake locations determined using insar agree well with those reported in regional catalogues with a median difference of 6 3 km between them which is smaller than for global seismic catalogues we also investigate the consistency of source parameters and source directivity by comparing isc hypocentres with gcmt and icmt centroid locations for earthquakes with mw 6 5 in some cases the source directivity is qualitatively comparable with previous studies especially when comparing isc and icmt locations the average difference between insar determined depths and those in the ehb catalogue is reduced if a layered half space is used in the inversion of insar data overall faulting geometry strike dip and rake angles remain in good agreement with values from the gcmt catalogue and any large discrepancies can be attributed to tradeoffs between parameters with continued investment in satellites for radar interferometry insar is a valuable technique for the estimation of earthquake source parameters the observed trends and discrepancies between insar and seismically determined source parameters are the result of issues with the data different inversion techniques and the assumed earth structure model

pore scale modeling of elastic wave propagation in carbonate rocks abstractthe relationship between p wave velocity and porosity in carbonate rocks shows a high degree of variability due to the complexity of the pore structure this variability introduces high uncertainties to seismic inversion amplitude variation with offset analysis porosity estimation and pore pressure prediction based on velocity data elastic wave propagation in porous media is numerically modeled on the pore scale to investigate the effects of pore structure on p wave velocities in carbonate rocks we built 2d models of porous media using pore structure information and the similarity principle then we simulated normal incidence wave propagation using finite element analysis finally the velocity was determined from received modeled signals by means of crosscorrelation the repeatability and accuracy of this modeling process was verified carefully based on the modeling results a simple formulation of sun s frame flexibility factor k aspect ratio ar the ratio of the major axis to the mi

joint earthquake source inversions using seismo geodesy and 3 d earth models a joint earthquake source inversion technique is presented that uses insar and long period teleseismic data and for the first time takes 3 d earth structure into account when modelling seismic surface and body waves ten average source parameters moment latitude longitude depth strike dip rake length width and slip are estimated hence the technique is potentially useful for rapid source inversions of moderate magnitude earthquakes using multiple data sets unwrapped interferograms and long period seismic data are jointly inverted for the location fault geometry and seismic moment using a hybrid downhill powell monte carlo algorithm while the insar data are modelled assuming a rectangular dislocation in a homogeneous halfspace seismic data are modelled using the spectral element method for a 3 d earth model the effect of noise and lateral heterogeneity on the inversions is investigated by carrying out realistic synthetic tests for various earthquakes with different faulting mechanisms and magnitude mw 6 0 6 6 synthetic tests highlight the improvement in the constraint of fault geometry strike dip and rake and moment when insar and seismic data are combined tests comparing the effect of using a 1 d or 3 d earth model show that long period surface waves are more sensitive than long period body waves to the change in earth model incorrect source parameters particularly incorrect fault dip angles can compensate for systematic errors in the assumed earth structure leading to an acceptable data fit despite large discrepancies in source parameters three real earthquakes are also investigated eureka valley california 1993 may 17 mw 6 0 aiquile bolivia 1998 february 22 mw 6 6 and zarand iran 2005 may 22 mw 6 5 these events are located in different tectonic environments and show large discrepancies between insar and seismically determined source models despite the 40 50 km discrepancies in location between previous geodetic and seismic estimates for the eureka valley and aiquile earthquakes the seismic data are found to be compatible with the insar location a 30 difference in strike between insar and seismic derived source models is also resolved when taking 3 d earth structure into account in the analysis of the eureka valley earthquake the combination of both insar and seismic data further constrains the dip for the zarand earthquake and in all cases the seismic moment is more robustly constrained in the joint inversions than in the individual data set inversions unmodelled lateral heterogeneities in earth and the models could partly explain some of the observed source parameter discrepancies related to the seismic data the authors 2014 published by oxford university press on behalf of the royal astronomical society

ultrasonic velocity and anisotropy of hydrocarbon source rocks an experimental study of the physical properties of black kerogen rich shales also including maturation analysis scanning electron microscope sem observations and physical modeling revealed fairly peculiar petrophysical parameters specifically these rocks have very low porosity and density but most importantly both p and s ultrasonic velocities normal to bedding are extremely low whereas they are much higher parallel to bedding giving rise to a strong anisotropy even at high confining pressures we found that these parameters primarily reflect kerogen content microstructure and maturation level of these rocks we found also that microcracks inferred from ultrasonic velocity measurements occur only in mature shales these microcracks are parallel to the bedding plane and further enhance strong intrinsic anisotropy notably at low effective pressure our results show that on a small scale kerogen rich shales are transversely isotropic rocks and can be effectively modeled using the thin laye

azimuthally dependent anisotropic velocity model update abstractwe consider a case where a 3d depth migration has been performed in the local angle domain lad using rich azimuth seismic data e g conventional land surveys the subsurface geologic model is characterized by considerable azimuthally anisotropic velocity variations the background velocity field used for the migration can consist of azimuthally independent e g vertical transverse isotropy and or azimuthally dependent e g orthorhombic velocity layers the resulting 3d full azimuth reflection angle gathers generated by the lad migration represent in situ high resolution amplitude preserved reflectivities associated with opening angles between incident and reflected slowness vectors in the specular directions residual moveouts rmos automatically picked on these 3d image gathers along major horizons can indicate considerable residual periodic azimuthal variations this situation is typical in depth imaging applied to unconventional shale plays where the background velocity model does

velocity anisotropy of upper jurassic organic rich shales norwegian continental shelf abstractthis study investigates the seismic velocity anisotropy of two organic rich shales from the norwegian continental shelf the tested organic rich shale samples were from the upper jurassic draupne and hekkingen formations collected from two wells 16 8 3s and 7125 1 1 drilled in the central north sea and western barents sea respectively the two tested shales are different in organic matter richness and thermal maturation and they have experienced different burial histories the shale core plugs were tested in a triaxial cell under controlled pore pressure seismic velocities vp and vs were measured along different orientations with respect to layering to identify the complete tensor of the rock elastic moduli and to investigate the velocity anisotropy as a function of increasing effective stress the measured velocity values exhibit strong anisotropy for the two tested organic rich shales the anisotropy for both shales is strongest for vs seismic velocities follow an increasing trend as th

monitoring velocity variations in the crust using earthquake doublets an application to the calaveras fault california we present a technique that greatly improves the precision in measuring temporal variations of crustal velocities using an earthquake doublet or pair of microearthquakes that have nearly identical waveforms and the same hypocenter and magnitude but occur on different dates we compute differences in arrival times between seismograms recorded at the same station in the freqency domain by cross correlation of short windows of signal a moving window analysis of the entire seismograms including the coda gives t the difference in arrival times versus running time along the seismogram the time resolution of the method is an order of magnitude better than the digitization interval the t technique is illustrated with a pair of microearthquakes m 1 7 and 2 0 that occurred before and after the coyote lake california earthquake m 5 9 of august 6 1979 and on the same segment of the calaveras fault that ruptured during the earthquake the coda wave arrivals for some stations are progressively delayed for the second earthquake in the doublet so that its seismogram appears as a stretched version of the earlier event we interpret this systematic variation in t along the coda as a change in the average s velocity in the upper crust in the time interval between the two doublets s wave velocities appear to have decreased by 0 2 in an oblong region 5 10 km in radius at the south end of the aftershock zone

deep fault plane geometry inferred from multiplet relative relocation beneath the south flank of kilauea dense microearthquake swarms occur in the upper south flank of kilauea providing multiplets composed of hundreds of events the similarity of their waveforms and the quality of the data have been sufficient to provide accurate relative relocations of their hypocenters a simple and efficient method has been developed which allowed the relative relocation of more than 250 events with an average precision of about 50 m horizontally and 75 m vertically relocation of these events greatly improves the definition of the seismic image of the fault that generates them indeed relative relocations define a plane dipping about 6 northward although corresponding absolute locations are widely dispersed in the swarm a composite focal mechanism built from events providing a correct spatial sampling of the multiplet also gives a well constrained northward dip of about 5 to the near horizontal plane this technique thus collapses the clouds of hypocenters of single event locations to a plane coinciding with the slip plane revealed by previous focal mechanism studies we cannot conclude that all south flank earthquakes collapse to a single plane there may locally be several planes perhaps with different dips and depths throughout the south flank volume the 6 northward dipping plane we found is too steep to represent the overall flexure of the oceanic crust under the load of the island of hawaii this plane is probably an important feature that characterizes the basal slip layer below the upper south flank of kilauea volcano differences in seismicity rate and surface deformations between the upper and lower south flank could be related to the geometry of this deep fault plane the present work illustrates how high precision relative relocations of similar events in dense swarms combined with the analysis of geodetic measurements can help to describe deep fault plane geometry systematic selection and extensive relative relocation of similar earthquakes could be attempted in other well instrumented highly seismic areas to provide reliable basic information especially useful for understanding of earthquake generation processes

seismic velocity anisotropy of phyllosilicate rich rocks characteristics inferred from experimental and crack model studies of biotite rich schist summary seismic velocity anisotropy of biotite schist 30 per cent mode biotite was measured under confining pressures up to 150 mpa the rock shows weak orthotropy which was altered from transverse isotropy ti generated by biotite preferred orientation the orthotropy was caused by microfolding in the rock the velocity increase under confining pressure indicates that most crack planes are aligned parallel to the cleavage planes silicate sheet of the oriented biotite minerals the anisotropy of the rock is basically ti due to both the aligned biotite minerals and cracks which have a common symmetry axis we found that other sheet silicate rich rocks have a similar anisotropy with the biotite schist in which the ti type anisotropy is characterized by the slow p and s wave velocities along the symmetry axis this is caused by the preferred orientation of sheet silicate minerals and the extremely slow p and s wave velocities along the axis perpendicular to the silicate sheet compared to the directions along the silicate sheet when rock contains a large percentage of highly oriented sheet silicates the fast and slow shear waves exchange their polarities at some off symmetry axis directions indicating that the qswave quasi s wave velocity exceeds the sh wave velocity the phase velocity distribution of qs wave shows an asymmetry with respect to the angle from the symmetry axis which is characterized by a bulge in this distribution located near the symmetric axis this is inherent to most sheet silicate minerals when crack density of aligned cracks increases the p wave velocity along the symmetry axis decreases considerably the qs wave phase velocity in the off axis directions also decreases in accordance with the decrease of the p velocity along the symmetry axis the asymmetry of the qs wave phase velocity distribution increases as the p wave velocity decreases along the symmetry axis this relationship can be well understood by means of berryman s extended thomsen approach

a geodynamic framework for interpreting crustal scale seismic reflectivity patterns in compressional orogens summary 2 d plane strain finite element models are used to calculate crustal deformation patterns within model compressional orogens and the results are compared with natural examples the fundamental driving mechanism for model deformation is provided by asymmetric detachment and underthrusting of mantle lithosphere with deformation being rooted at the stress singularity where the mantle detaches deformation steps up into the overlying crust and spreads laterally according to the rhcological properties assumed for the crust the crust is modelled using plastic frictional and viscous rheologies and incorporates the effects of compositional layering and variable geothermal gradients overall deformation is determined by balancing the internal strength of the crust against the sum of applied boundary stresses plus the gravitational stress induced by mass redistribution within the deforming orogen the amount of convergence in the models is limited to 150 km or less and so the results are not strictly comparable with larger orogens involving greater convergence nevertheless larger orogens seem to evolve through stages that may be understood in terms of the models provided that consideration is confined to smaller scale components that are limited in time and space the continuum deformation calculated by the finite element models is qualitatively converted to equivalent pattcrns of discrete faults and shear zones by associating these discrete features with the areas of highest cumulative strain using the results of sandbox experiments as guides significant styles of deformation include 1 coupling between step up shears and subhorizontal detachments at one or more levels 2 localization of upper crustal deformation by subduction of the lower crust and 3 pinning of deformation by surface denudation a partial catalogue of such model styles is presented in which the strength of basal coupling between crust and mantle the number of rhcological layers within the crust the thickness of subducted lower crust and the extent of surface denudation are varied systematically compressional orogens with a wide range of ages are characterized by crustal scale seismic reflectivity similar to patterns of fault shear zones represented in this catalogue of styles this similarity suggests that crustalscale seismic reflection data can be used to constrain the dynamic processes involved in compressional orogcnesis

global compilation of interferometric synthetic aperture radar earthquake source models 1 comparisons with seismic catalogs 1 while many earthquakes have now been studied using interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data a full assessment of the quality and additional value of insar source parameters compared to seismological techniques is still lacking we compile a catalog of source models obtained using insar and estimate the corresponding centroid moment tensor cmt parameters we refer to this compilation as the icmt archive we compare source parameters from over 70 insar studies of 57 global earthquakes with those in the global cmt gcmt international seismological centre isc and engdahl hilst buland ehb seismic catalogs we find an overall good agreement between fault strike dip and rake values in the gcmt and icmt archives likewise the differences in seismic moment between these two archives are relatively small and we do not find support for previously suggested trends of insar leading to larger moments than seismic data however epicentral locations show substantial discrepancies which are larger for the gcmt median differences of 21 km than for the ehb and isc catalogs median differences of 10 km since insar data have a high spatial resolution and thus should map epicentral locations accurately this allows us to obtain a first independent estimate of epicentral location errors in the seismic catalogs earthquake depths from insar are systematically shallower than those in the ehb catalog with a median of differences of 5 km while this trend may be partly due to unmodeled crustal complexity it is also compatible with the observation that the rupture of crustal earthquakes tends to propagate upward in the seismogenic layer

estimation of effective anisotropy simultaneously with locations of microseismic events passive seismic tomography in which the event locations and the velocity model are inferred simultaneously is seldom used to process microseismic surveys acquired in the oil and gas industry we discuss advantages of applying tomographic ideas to typical microseismic data recorded in a single nearly vertical well to monitor hydraulic stimulation of a shale gas reservoir microseismic events are conventionally located in the energy industry applications using a velocity model derived from sonic logs and perforation shots instead of fixing the model as is normally done we alter it while locating the events this added flexibility not only makes it possible to accurately predict traveltimes of the recorded p and s waves but also provides a convincing evidence for anisotropy of the examined shale formation while we find that velocity heterogeneity does not need to be introduced to explain the data acquired at each stage of hydraulic fracturing the obtained models are suggestive of possible time laps

stress induced seismic azimuthal anisotropy sand shale content and depth trends offshore north west australia abstractseismic azimuthal anisotropy is apparent when p wave velocities vary with source receiver azimuth and downward propagating s waves split into two quasi s waves polarized in orthogonal directions not accounting for these effects can degrade seismic image quality and result in erroneous amplitude analysis and geologic interpretations there are currently no physical models available to describe how azimuthal anisotropy induced by differential horizontal stress varies with sand shale lithology and depth we develop a model that does so in unconsolidated sand shale sequences offshore north west australia our method naturally introduces two new concepts critical anisotropy and anisotropic depth limit critical anisotropy is the maximum amount of azimuthal anisotropy expected to be observed at the shallowest sediment burial depth where the confining pressure and sediment compaction are minimal the anisotropic depth limit is the maximum depth where the stress induced azimuthal anisotropy is ex

seismic anisotropy in sedimentary rocks part 2 laboratory data part one of this paper presents a method for measuring seismic velocities and transverse isotropy in rocks using a single core plug this method saves at least two thirds of the time for preparing core samples and measuring velocities in transversely isotropic ti rocks using this method we have measured velocity and anisotropy of many shale and reservoir rocks from oil and gas fields around the world we present some of the data in this paper which include seismic velocity and anisotropy in 17 brine saturated shale samples 1 gas and brine saturated coal sample 8 brine saturated sands 12 gas saturated sands 32 gas saturated carbonate samples and 25 brine saturated carbonate samples the results show that clays and fine layering in sedimentary rocks are the main causes of seismic anisotropy very little intrinsic anisotropy exists in unfractured reservoir rocks such as sands sandstones and carbonates under reservoir conditions in contrast all shales were found seismically anisotropic anisotr

global event location with full and sparse data sets using three dimensional models of mantle p wave velocity in order to improve on the accuracy of event locations at teleseismic distances it is necessary to adequately correct for lateral variations in structure along the ray paths either through deterministic model based corrections empirical path station corrections or a combination of both approaches in this paper we investigate the ability of current three dimensional models of mantle p wave velocity to accurately locate teleseismic events we test four recently published models two are parameterized in terms of relatively long wavelength spherical harmonic functions up to degree 12 and two are parameterized in terms of blocks of constant velocity which have a dimension of a few hundreds of km these models together with detailed crustal corrections are used to locate a set of 112 global test events consisting of both earthquakes and explosions with p wave travel time data compiled by the international seismological centre isc the results indicate that the supposedly higher resolution block models do not improve the accuracy of teleseismic event locations over the longer wavelength spherical harmonic models for some source locations the block models do not predict the range of observed travel time residuals as well as the longer wavelength models the accuracy of the locations largely varies randomly with geographic position although events in central asia are particularly well located we also tested the effect of reduced data sets on the locations multiple location iterations using 30 p wave travel times indicate that teleseismic events may be located within an area of 1000 km of the true location 66 of the time with only the model based corrections and increasing to 75 if calibration information is available if as few as 8 phases are available then this is possible only 50 of the time further refinement in models and or procedure such as the addition ofp phases azimuth data and consideration of p wave anisotropy may provide further improvement in the teleseismic location of small events

geological interpretation of dekorp 2 s a deep seismic reflection profile across the saxothuringian and possible implications for the late variscan structural evolution of central europe abstract a 250 km long deep seismic section the first of its kind in west germany s dekorp project is interpreted in terms of late variscan collisional tectonics the structural model used is based on the intracontinental thrust tectonics concept of modern collision orogens the crustal profile across the saxothuringian zone seems to indicate north facing ramps antiformal stacks and culminations within the crystalline basement of the internal mid european variscides that have been only partially overprinted by permo mesozoic crustal stretching

impact of fabric microcracks and stress field on shale anisotropy summary few data are available on shales in terms of seismic to ultrasonic properties and anisotropy although all are important with regards to imaging problems often encountered in such lithologies additionally mechanisms causing changes in these properties are not well documented due to the fine grain size of such materials and time required for testing under controlled pore pressure conditions the results presented here are derived from a set of experiments run on muderong shale with pore pressure control in order to evaluate the effect of stress magnitude and stress anisotropy on ultrasonic response this shale was noted to have a linear velocitymean effective stress response and extremely high anisotropy both likely the result of the presence of fluid filled cracks in a low permeability porous medium changes in velocity and vp vs ratios are dependent on both stress and smectite content s wave velocity is significantly affected by the presence of smectite in this and other shales and at low stress 20 mpa is less sensitive to stress change than p wave velocity vp vs ratios are noted to increase in this shale up to 20 mpa effective stress then decrease slightly due to stress induced loss of interlayer water in smectite intrinsic anisotropy comes from composition a strong compaction fabric and the presence of microfractures changes to ultrasonic anisotropy are the result of the magnitude of the stresses their orientation with respect to the fractures and the degree of stress anisotropy

seismic anisotropy in sedimentary rocks part 1 a single plug laboratory method a single plug method for measuring seismic velocities and transverse isotropy in rocks has been rigorously validated and laboratory tested the method requires only one sample to measure the velocities needed to derive the five independent elastic constants for transversely isotropic materials in this method piezoelectric transducers are fitted to the top bottom and sides of the cylindrical sample laboratory velocity and anisotropy can be measured as functions of pressure temperature fluid saturation and fluid displacement because this method uses a horizontal core plug that has much higher permeability than a vertical core plug it is especially suitable for low permeability shale measurements it reduces the sample preparation and velocity measurement time by more than two thirds

ultrasonic velocity and mechanical anisotropy of synthetic shale with different types of clay minerals clay minerals are the most abundant materials in shale their presence significantly influences the elastic behavior of reservoir rocks as a function of mineral type volume and distribution and their orientation controls the shale s intrinsic anisotropic behaviors thus knowing the elastic properties of shale with different types of clay minerals is imperative for fully understanding the seismic properties of the reservoir however it is extremely difficult to measure the elastic properties of natural shale by means of a single variable in this case the type of clay due to the influences of multiple factors including water toc content complex minerals composition and so on thus we use quartz clay kaolinite illite and smectite carbonate and kerogen extract as the primary materials to construct synthetic shale with different types of clay ultrasonic experiments were conducted to study the anisotropy of velocity and mechanical properties young s modulus and poisson s ratio in dry synth

the elastic anisotrophy of shales shales constitute about 75 of the clastic fill sedimentary basins and have a decisive effect on fluid flow and seismic wave propagation because of their low permeability and anisotropic microstructure the elastic stiffnesses of a shale with partially oriented clay particles is expressed in terms of the coefficients w sub lmn in an expansion of the clay particle orientation distribution function in generalized legendre functions application is made to the determination of the anellipticity of shales for transverse isotrophy the anellipticity quantifies the deviation of the p wave slowness curve from an ellipse and is shown to depend on a single coefficient w sub 400 in the expansion of the clay particle orientation distribution function if w sub 400 is small the anellipticity may be neglected as is apparently the case for a near surface late tertiary shale studied by winterstein and paulson strongly aligned clay particles result in a positive value of w sub 400 and a positive anellipticity in agreement with the majority of the field measurements however less well ordered shales could have a significantly positive second moment w sub 200 but only a small positive or even negative value of w sub 400 for such shales the anellipticity would be small or negative despite amore preferred alignment of clay particles in the bedding plane numerical examples of clay particle orientation distribution functions leading to zero or negative anellipticity are given less

accretionary history and crustal evolution of the variscan belt in western europe abstract the variscan belt of western europe is part of a large intra paleozoic belt extending on both sides of the atlantic from the ouachitas in the us and the mauritanides in west africa to the bohemian massif in czechoslovakia and poland the belt was constructed between 500 and 250 ma as a result of convergence and collision between two main continents laurentia baltica and africa after the closure of various oceanic basins iapetus rheic and galicia massif central now recorded as discrete in part cryptic sutures which form the roots of large crystalline nappes in which are found dismembered remnants of oceanic crust and mantle the accretionary history of the variscan belt in western europe is related to the progressive closure of probably two oceanic basins the rheic in the north and another the galicia massif central in the south by respectively southward and northward intraoceanic subduction followed by obduction and intracontinental lithospheric subduction the result is a broad 700 800 km fan like divergent belt which must be considered as a classical obduction collision orogen with a long intracontinental history of about 100 150 ma its arcuate shape is probably due to the northwestward impingement of a promontory of the african continent into laurentia baltica

anisotropic effective medium modeling of the elastic properties of shales shales are complex porous materials normally consisting of percolating and interpenetrating fluid and solid phases the solid phase is generally comprised of several mineral components and forms an intricate and anisotropic microstructure the shape orientation and connection of the two phases control the anisotropic elastic properties of the composite solid we develop a theoretical framework that allows us to predict the effective elastic properties of shales its usefulness is demonstrated with numerical modeling and by comparison with established ultrasonic laboratory experiments the theory is based on a combination of anisotropic formulations of the self consistent sca and differential effective medium dem approximations this combination guarantees that both the fluid and solid phases percolate at all porosities our modeling of the elastic properties of shales proceeds in four steps first we consider the case of an aligned biconnected clay fluid composite composed of ellipsoidal inclusion

3 d prestack migration of wide angle data from a variscan transition zone in addition to the near normal incidence observations within the german dekorp 2 project in 1984 wide angle observations have been carried out on a parallel profile across the boundary between the saxothuringian and moldanubian crust approximately 50 km ne of the main transect to control three dimensional variations explosion sources have been used for the entire survey providing excellent conditions for wide angle registrations a velocity model has been derived on the basis of in and off line refraction measurements using a kinematic raytracer which was extended to three dimensions by interpolation of 2 d velocity fields between parallel sections although prestack migration of the data led to aliasing effects due to large shot and geophone spacing stable results were obtained by forming envelopes after single shot migration the migrated sections reveal a strongly reflective moho at about 31 km depth and a steeply 50 dipping intracrustal reflector which seems to be related to the border between the two variscan units

teleseismic location techniques and their application to earthquake clusters in the south central pacific abstract improved methods for single and multiple event hypocenter determinations are developed and applied to the problem of locating earthquake clusters in the south central pacific ocean bayesian statistical methods are used to incorporate a priori information about arrival time variance into the derivation of hypocenter confidence ellipsoids permitting a more realistic calculation of critical parameters in the case where the number of stations is small the diagonal elements of certain projection operators called data importances by minster et al 1974 are used to evaluate network balance the hypocentroid of an event cluster is defined to be the average location of events within the cluster and the deviations of individual hypocenters from the hypocentroid are called cluster vectors the problem of estimating the cluster vectors can be decoupled from the problem of estimating the hypocentroid by a simple but fundamental mathematical result here termed the hypocentroidal decomposition theorem the algorithm based on this analysis appears to have many advantages over other published methods for multiple event location both in its efficient use of available information and its computational speed the application of this method to three clusters of shallow intraplate seismicity in the south central pacific designated regions a b and c demonstrates that the seismicity within each cluster is very localized the rms lengths of the cluster vectors for each group of epicenters are estimated to be only 9 6 and 12 km respectively estimates of the epicentroids are

anisotropic correction of sonic logs in wells with large relative dip seismic reservoir characterization and pore pressure prediction projects rely heavily on the accuracy and consistency of sonic logs sonic data acquisition in wells with large relative dip is known to suffer from anisotropic effects related to microanisotropy of shales and thin bed laminations of sand silt and shale nonetheless if anisotropy parameters can be related to shale content vsh in siliciclastic rocks then i show that it is straightforward to compute the anisotropy correction to both compressional and shear logs using vsh and the formation relative dip angle the resulting rotated p wave sonic logs can be used to enhance time depth ties velocity to effective stress transforms and low frequency models necessary for prestack seismic amplitude variation with offset avo inversion

geostatistical traveltime tomography in elliptically anisotropic media in geological materials anisotropy may arise due to different mechanisms and can be found at different scales neglecting anisotropy in traveltime tomographic reconstruction leads to artefacts that can obscure important subsurface features in this paper a geostatistical tomography algorithm to invert cross hole traveltime data in elliptically anisotropic media is presented the advantages of geostatistical tomography are that the solution is regularized by the covariance of the model parameters that known model parameters can be used as constraints and fitted exactly or within a prescribed variance and that stochastic simulations can be performed to appraise the variability of the solution space the benefits of the algorithm to image anisotropic media are illustrated by two examples using synthetic georadar data and real seismic data the first example confirms suspected electromagnetic anisotropy in the vadose zone caused by relatively rapid water content variations with respect to wavelength at georadar frequencies the second presents how sonic log data can be used to constrain the inversion of cross well seismic data and how geostatistical simulations can be used to infer parameter uncertainty results of both examples show that considering anisotropy yields a better fit to the data at high ray angles and reduces reconstruction artefacts

ultrasonic velocities in cretaceous shales from the williston basin compressional and shear wave velocities were measured in the laboratory from 1 bar to 4 kbar confining pressure for wet undrained samples of cretaceous shales from depths of 3200 and 5000 ft in the williston basin north dakota these shales behave as transversely isotropic elastic media the plane of circular symmetry coinciding with the bedding plane for compressional waves the velocity is higher for propagation in the bedding plane than at right angles to it and the anisotropy is greater for the 5000 ft shale for shear waves the sh wave perpendicular to bedding and the sv wave parallel to bedding propagate with the same speed which is about 25 percent lower than that for the sh wave parallel to bedding in general compressional and shear velocities are higher for the indurated 5000 ft shale than for the friable 3200 ft shale all velocities increase with in increasing confining pressure to 4 kbar the 3200 ft shale exhibits velocity hysteresis as a function of pressure whereas this effect is a

a large magmatic sill complex beneath the toba caldera an understanding of the formation of large magmatic reservoirs is a key issue for the evaluation of possible strong volcanic eruptions in the future we estimated the size and level of maturity of one of the largest volcanic reservoirs based on radial seismic anisotropy we used ambient noise seismic tomography below the toba caldera in northern sumatra to observe the anisotropy that we interpret as the expression of a fine scale layering caused by the presence of many partially molten sills in the crust below 7 kilometers this result demonstrates that the magmatic reservoirs of present non eroded supervolcanoes can be formed as large sill complexes and supports the concept of the long term incremental evolution of magma bodies that lead to the largest volcanic eruptions

improving teleseismic event locations using a three dimensional earth model abstract a comparison is made between seismic event locations derived from standard spherically symmetric earth models jb prem iasp91 and a recent earth model sp and a published data set of 82 well located earthquakes with a more even global distribution iasp91 and prem are shown to offer similar errors in event location and origin time estimates with respect to the jb model the three dimensional 3d model sp for the earthquakes the improvements are smaller corrections for crustal thickness beneath source and receiver are found to be of similar magnitude to the mantle corrections but use of station corrections together with the three dimensional mantle model provide the best locations

comparison between analytical and 3d finite element solutions for borehole stresses in anisotropic elastic rock we present a rigorous validation of the analytical amadei solution for the stress concentration around an arbitrarily orientated borehole in general anisotropic elastic media first we revisit the theoretical framework of the amadei solution and present analytical insights that show that the solution does indeed contain all special cases of symmetry contrary to previous understanding provided that the reduced strain coefficients b11 and b55 are not equal it is shown from theoretical considerations and published experimental data that the b11 and b55 are not equal for realistic rocks second we develop a 3d finite element elastic model within a hybrid analytical numerical workflow that circumvents the need to rebuild and remesh the model for every borehole and material orientation third we show that the borehole stresses computed from the numerical model and the analytical solution match almost perfectly for different borehole orientations vertical deviated and horizontal and for several cases involving isotropic transverse isotropic and orthorhombic symmetries it is concluded that the analytical amadei solution is valid with no restriction on the borehole orientation or the symmetry of the elastic anisotropy

microcrack induced versus intrinsic elastic anisotropy in mature hc source shales recent experimental studies of ultrasonic velocity anisotropy in kerogen rich shales indicate that these rocks are characterized by a very strong anisotropic response related to a very fine bedding parallel lamination of organic matter and preferred orientation of clay particles in the rock matrix vernik and nur 1992 this intrinsic anisotropy is further enhanced in thermally mature shales by bedding parallel microcracks caused by the processes of hydrocarbon generation vernik paper in preparation however the potential of recognizing mature source rocks in situ using downhole sonic crosshole seismic or vsp data clearly depends on our ability to discriminate between these two major causes of elastic anisotropy remove the effect of the intrinsic anisotropy and estimate crack density and crack porosity from velocity measurements

elastic anisotropy of shales accompanying the resource potential of gas shales is a new interest in understanding the physical and petrophysical properties of shales shale by geochemical or stratigraphic measures is arguably the most common lithology encountered in sedimentary basins despite this shales remain little studied while engineers and explorationists focused on conventional reservoirs geophysicists did this knowing full well that often a reflection coefficient from a reservoir was controlled by the shale properties of the cap rock we compensated for this ignorance by arguing that shales are deposited in deepwater environments in which lateral and vertical changes are slow and therefore inconsequential we further compounded this ignorance by assuming that the shales were isotropic an example of the consequences of this ignorance was clearly documented by margesson and sondergeld 1999 engineers share culpability for this ignorance too since most of the drilling problems occur in shales and most of the lithologies d

linking preferred orientations to elastic anisotropy in muderong shale australia the significance of shales for unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs nuclear waste repositories and geologic carbon storage has opened new research frontiers in geophysics among many of its unique physical properties elastic anisotropy had long been investigated by experimental and computational approaches here we calculated elastic properties of cretaceous muderong shale from australia with a self consistent averaging method based on microstructural information the volume fraction and crystallographic preferred orientation distributions of constituent minerals were based on synchrotron x ray diffraction experiments aspect ratios of minerals and pores determined from scanning electron microscopy were introduced in the self consistent averaging our analysis suggested that phyllosilicates i e illite mica illite smectite kaolinite and chlorite were dominant with 70 vol the shape of clay platelets displayed an average aspect ratio of 0 05 these platelets were aligned parallel to the bedding plane with a high degree of preferred orientation the estimated porosity at ambient pressure was 17 vol and was divided into equiaxial pores and flat pores with an average aspect ratio of 0 01 our model gave results that compared satisfactorily with values derived from ultrasonic velocity measurements confirming the validity and reliability of our approximations and averaging approach

systematic variation in the depths of slabs beneath arc volcanoes summary the depths to the tops of the zones of intermediate depth seismicity beneath arc volcanoes are determined using the hypocentral locations of engdahl et al these depths are constant to within a few kilometres within individual arc segments but differ by tens of kilometres from one arc segment to another the range in depths is from 65 km to 130 km inconsistent with the common belief that the volcanoes directly overlie the places where the slabs reach a critical depth that is roughly constant for all arcs the depth to the top of the intermediate depth seismicity beneath volcanoes correlates neither with age of the descending ocean floor nor with the thermal parameter of the slab this depth does however exhibit an inverse correlation with the descent speed of the subducting plate which is the controlling factor both for the thermal structure of the wedge of mantle above the slab and for the temperature at the top of the slab we interpret this result as indicating that the location of arc volcanoes is controlled by a process that depends critically upon the temperature at the top of the slab or in the wedge of mantle immediately below the volcanic arc

texture and anisotropy analysis of qusaiba shales scanning and transmission electron microscopy synchrotron x ray diffraction microtomography and ultrasonic velocity measurements were used to characterize microstructures and anisotropy of three deeply buried qusaiba shales from the rub alkhali basin saudi arabia kaolinite illite smectite illite mica and chlorite show strong preferred orientation with 001 pole figure maxima perpendicular to the bedding plane ranging from 2 4 6 8 multiples of a random distribution m r d quartz feldspars and pyrite crystals have a random orientation distribution elastic properties of the polyphase aggregate are calculated by averaging the single crystal elastic properties over the orientation distribution assuming a nonporous material the average calculated bulk p wave velocities are 6 2 km s maximum and 5 5 km s minimum resulting in a p wave anisotropy of 12 the calculated velocities are compared with those determined from ultrasonic velocity measurements on a similar sample in the ultrasonic experiment which measures the effects of the shale matrix as well as the effects of porosity velocities are smaller p wave maximum 5 3 km s and minimum 4 1 km s the difference between calculated and measured velocities is attributed to the effects of anisotropic pore structure and to microfractures present in the sample which have not been taken into account in the matrix averaging

seismic dispersion and attenuation in layered porous rocks with fractures of varying orientations abstract wave induced fluid flow plays an important role in affecting the seismic dispersion and attenuation of fractured porous rocks while numerous theoretical models have been proposed for the seismic dispersion and attenuation in fractured porous rocks most of them neglect the wave induced fluid flow resulting from the background anisotropy e g the interlayer fluid flow between different layers that can be normal in real reservoirs here according to the theories of poroelasticity we present an approach to study the frequency dependent seismic properties of more realistic and complicated rocks i e horizontally and periodically layered porous rock with horizontal and randomly orienting fractures respectively distributed in one of the two periodical layers the approach accounts for the dual effects of the wave induced fluid flow between the fractures and the background pores and between different layers the interlayer fluid flow because c33 i e the modulus of the normally incident p wave is directly related to the p wave velocity widely measured in the seismic exploration and its comprehensive dispersion and attenuation are found to be most significant we study mainly the effects of fracture properties and the stiffness contrast between the different layers on the seismic dispersion and attenuation of c33 the results show that the increasing stiffness contrast enhances the interlayer fluid flow of the layered porous rocks with both horizontal and randomly orienting fractures and weakens the wave induced fluid flow between the fractures and the background pores especially for the layered porous rock with horizontal fractures the modelling results also demonstrate that for the considered rock construction the increasing fracture density reduces the interlayer fluid flow while improves the dispersion and attenuation in the fracture relevant frequency band increasing fracture aspect ratio is found to reduce the dispersion and attenuation in the fracture relevant frequency band only especially for the layered porous rock with horizontal fractures

subduction zone calibration and teleseismic relocation of thrust zone events in the central aleutian islands abstract teleseismically determined epicenters for thrust zone earthquakes in the central aleutian islands are systematically mislocated by about 40 km to the north relative to local network solutions we attribute the mislocation to travel time anomalies produced by the higher p wave velocity in the subducting slab these travel time anomalies can be estimated by seismic ray tracing through a thermally modeled velocity structure for the slab observed teleseismic station residuals and slab travel time anomalies computed from local network hypocenters plotted as a function of event distance to the center of curvature of the island arc show good agreement this distance versus residual relationship can be used to validate the local network hypocenters and to constrain the length of subducting lithosphere computed slab source corrections when incorporated in a standard location program reduce teleseismic mislocations to 20 km the addition of empirical station corrections reduces the mislocation to about 10 to 15 km depth and origin time estimates can be further improved through use of better station corrections a local station within 2 and depth phases

depths and focal mechanisms of crustal earthquakes in the central andes determined from teleseismic waveform analysis and insar 1 we investigate the depths of crustal earthquakes mw 5 5 earthquakes from the global cmt catalog and previous work spanning 1944 2007 for 38 well recorded events we use teleseismic p and sh waveforms to model the strike dip rake focal depth and source time function we use insar observations of surface deformation from 9 earthquakes to compare inferred fault parameters with the waveform inversions and global catalogs to assess their accuracies while the depths from the insar and waveform analyses generally agree within error horizontal and depth errors in global catalogs are 10 to 50 km as found elsewhere as noted in previous work the majority of crustal earthquakes occur in the eastern cordillera and foreland regions of the central andes although a few normal and strike slip earthquakes occur beneath the altiplano plateau and in the forearc in southern peru and northernmost chile we propose a new interpretation of one of the basement thrusts shira mountain peru as a pop up block on the basis of our new earthquake depths we confirm that earthquakes in the flat slab areas of peru and argentina are within the sometimes aseismic lower crust lower crustal earthquakes are globally found in all types of tectonic settings only when the thermal lithosphere is more than 80 km thick and the amount of recent shortening extension is 30

hybrid fourier finite difference 3d depth migration for anisotropic media when a subsurface is anisotropic migration based on the assumption of isotropy will not produce accurate migration images we develop a hybrid wave equation migration algorithm for vertical transversely isotropic vti media based on a one way acoustic wave equation using a combination of fourier finite difference ffd and finite difference fd approaches the hybrid method can suppress an additional solution that exists in the vti acoustic wave equation and it offers speed and other advantages over conventional ffd or fd methods alone the algorithm is tested on a synthetic model involving log data from onshore eastern saudi arabia including estimates of both intrinsic and layer induced vti parameters results indicate that vti imaging in this region offers some improvement over isotropic imaging primarily with respect to subtle structure and stratigraphy and to image continuity these benefits probably will be overshadowed by perennial land seismic data issues such as near surface distortions and multiples

seismicity in subduction zones from local and regional network observations the data provided by local and regional seismograph networks are essential for the solution of many problems of subduction zone seismology the capabilities of such networks are limited by the instrumentation currently in common use and the unfavorable source station geometry often imposed by the regional geography nevertheless important contributions have come from the data gathered in many of the earth s subduction zones the accuracy of hypocenter locations based on regional data is affected by the complex velocity structures characteristic of subduction zones but the problems are now well understood examples of numerous studies of the spatial configurations of the seismicity in subduction zones and consequent interpretations of seismogenesis and subduction processes are reviewed studies of the distributions of earthquakes in time and with magnitude for events down to the microearthquake level have the potential for clarifying the earthquake generating processes and possibly a basis for earthquake prediction other uses of local and regional network data have been for investigations of coda s and the identification of asperities in subduction zones

the variscan belt in central europe main structures geodynamic implications open questions abstract the variscan belt of europe originated from the confrontation of northern europe and gondwana with intervening pre variscan blocks cadomian and older armorica tepla barrandean moravo silesian though a strike slip component cannot be excluded geological evidence suggests a subduction collision process newly discovered features include basaltic rocks with morb affinities high pressure metamorphic rocks trench deposits and large scale allochthonism which also affects the pre variscan basement and has often led to an inversion of the metamorphic isogrades large scale thrusting is evident at all crustal levels and is also observable by geophysical methods the structure of the variscan crust is best described as horizontal tectonic layering late ordovician through carboniferous convergence closed one rhenohercynian and one saxo thuringian basin to the north and at least one mediterranean basin to the south of the pre variscan blocks subduction occurred from the north as well as from the south down under the dorsal core region the exact timing and the driving mechanism of this bilateral activity remains a problem likewise uncertain are the exact limination of the pre variscan blocks and the existence and width of oceanic areas in the saxothuringian zone and in the south facing part of the moldanubian zone there is good evidence of early palaeozoic rifting and of late ordovician through carboniferous plate convergence palaeomagnetic and palaeoclimatic constraints however suggest only a limited extent of oceanic basins in these areas while they appear to allow a wider ocean at the rhenohercynian saxothuringian boundary which is relatively unobtrusive from the geological point of view research during the past decade has produced a wealth of information on the variscan fold belt in europe the resulting geodynamic models however are extremely diverging evidently it is not the time yet for definitive statements the present paper intends to review the state of knowledge to deduce such basic items of a geodynamic model as appear reasonably well documented and to point out the most urgent open questions stress will be laid on central europe which offers a complete cross section through the northern flank of the variscan belt and where we have carried out most of our studies during the last years

a laboratory study of seismic velocity and attenuation anisotropy in near surface sedimentary rocks the laboratory ultrasonic pulse echo method was used to collect accurate p and s wave velocity 0 3 and attenuation 10 data at differential pressures of 5 50 mpa on water saturated core samples of sandstone limestone and siltstone that were cut parallel and perpendicular to the vertical borehole axis the results when expressed in terms of the p and s wave velocity and attenuation anisotropy parameters for weakly transversely isotropic media q q show complex variations with pressure and lithology in general attenuation anisotropy is stronger and more sensitive to pressure changes than velocity anisotropy regardless of lithology anisotropy is greatest over 20 for velocity over 70 for attenuation in rocks with visible clay organic matter laminations in hand specimens pressure sensitivities are attributed to the opening of microcracks with decreasing pressure changes in magnitude of velocity and attenuation anisotropy with effective pressure show similar trends although they can show different signs positive or negative values of q q we conclude that attenuation anisotropy in particular could prove useful to seismic monitoring of reservoir pressure changes if frequency dependent effects can be quantified and modelled

separated earthquake location we present a practical method of locating earthquakes in laterally varying media the procedure has two distinct phases an estimation phase and an application phase in the estimation phase all existing arrival time residuals relative to some reference one dimensional velocity model for a region are used to estimate a set of path anomalies station corrections that vary as a function of source position this is done by sorting earthquakes into groups localized in space and applying a novel multiple event location algorithm this algorithm uses a pair of complementary projection operators to combine a priori information about the lateral structure that is indeterminate from the available data with the information that can be determined uniquely from the available data having estimated path anomalies as a function of source location we can generate a table of path anomalies that can be accessed and interpolated for future earthquake location this is the application phase of the method we have tested the method on synthetic data designed to study how well earthquakes can be located in the vicinity of the rupture zone of the 1984 morgan hill california earthquake we found precise absolute locations could be obtained provided the a priori information was specified appropriately distortion of relative locations occurred near large lateral velocity gradients and for groups of events spread over large areas because of the inadequacy of fitting a single set of path anomalies to the whole group

influence of subsurface injection on time lapse seismic laboratory studies at seismic and ultrasonic frequencies seismic monitoring of reservoir and overburden performance during subsurface co2 storage plays a key role in ensuring efficiency and safety proper interpretation of monitoring data requires knowledge about the rock physical phenomena occurring in the subsurface formations this work focuses on rock stiffness and elastic velocity changes of a shale overburden formation caused by both reservoir inflation induced stress changes and leakage of co2 into the overburden in laboratory experiments pierre shale i core plugs were loaded along the stress path representative for the in situ stress changes experienced by caprock during reservoir inflation tests were carried out in a triaxial compaction cell combining three measurement techniques and permitting for determination of i ultrasonic velocities ii quasi static rock deformations iii dynamic elastic stiffnesses at seismic frequencies within single test which allowed to quantify effects of seismic dispersion in addition fluid substitution effects connected with possible co2 leakage into the caprock formation were modelled by the modified anisotropic gassmann model results of this work indicate that i stress sensitivity of pierre shale i is frequency dependent ii reservoir inflation leads to the increase of the overburden young s modulus and poisson s ratio iii in situ stress changes mostly affects the p wave velocities iv small leakage of the co2 into the overburden may lead to the velocity changes which are comparable with one associated with geomechanical influence v non elastic effects increase stress sensitivity of an acoustic waves iv both geomechanical and fluid substitution effects would create significant time shifts which should be detectable by time lapse seismic this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

phased array compaction cell for measurement of the transversely isotropic elastic properties of compacting sediments sediments undergoing compaction typically exhibit transversely isotropic ti elastic properties we present a new experimental apparatus the phased array compaction cell for measuring the ti elastic properties of clay rich sediments during compaction this apparatus uses matched sets of p and s wave ultrasonic transducers located along the sides of the sample and an ultrasonic p wave phased array source together with a miniature p wave receiver on the top and bottom ends of the sample the phased array measurements are used to form plane p waves that provide estimates of the phase velocities over a range of angles from these measurements the five ti elastic constants can be recovered as the sediment is compacted without the need for sample unloading recoring or reorienting this paper provides descriptions of the apparatus the data processing and an application demonstrating recovery of the evolving ti properties of a compacting marine sediment sample

model calculations of regional network locations for earthquakes in subduction zones algorithms for locating earthquakes recorded by local networks commonly assume a flat layered velocity structure even in island arc regions where the presence of a dipping lithospheric slab introduces large lateral velocity variations moreover because seismic stations occur along the narrow island arc the resulting linear network geometry degrades earthquake location to model this situation we trace rays in a spherical earth from hypothetical earthquakes through appropriate velocity models to networks of various geometries to isolate the effect of the slab most of the velocity models consist simply of a planar dipping constant velocity region embedded in a sphere with a constant lower seismic velocity we then use the calculated p and s travel times to relocate the hypothetical earthquakes with a flat layered velocity structure we perform calculations of this kind in a variety of models varying the dip of the slab the velocity contrast between the slab and the mantle the station geometry and the distance between the earthquakes and the slab mantle boundary we also perform calculations in more realistic models with geometry closely resembling two seismic networks in alaska these model calculations emphasize the great care that seismologists should exercise when interpreting local network locations in island arc regions in the present study all the relocations incorporate p and s arrivals at all stations and include no random or picking errors nevertheless the relocated hypocenters differ from the actual model hypocenters by up to 100 km or more and produce significant distortions in the wadati benioff zone the most prominent spurious feature is a clear increase in the apparent dip of the wadati benioff zone beneath a certain depth furthermore the relocation reduces the width or apparent thickness of the wadati benioff zone e g they produce an apparent thickness of 5 km or smaller for a zone of earthquakes with an actual thickness of 20 km however if different combinations of stations report different events it is possible to determine an apparent thickness which exceeds the actual thickness for local networks near subduction zones it is useful to estimate the mislocation and rms residual expected for each event recorded and located this can be accomplished by performing model calculations in a simple model with a constant velocity dipping slab embedded in a half space for such a simple model there exists only one ray path from each earthquake within the slab to each station and the travel time for this path can be calculated as a part of the routine network location process a relocation using the routine network location algorithm and these calculated travel times provides an indication of the expected mislocation and rms residual for the actual recorded event

j362d28 a new joint model of compressional and shear velocity in the earth s mantle summary the discrimination between chemical and thermal heterogeneity in the earth s mantle remains one of the most important and challenging questions to be answered by observational and theoretical geophysics to answer this question requires a thorough knowledge of the ratio between compressional and shear velocity anomalies we describe results of a joint inversion for compressional and shear velocity in the mantle using a large and diverse data set consisting of traveltimes complete waveforms and surface wave dispersion measurements a horizontal tessellation consisting of 362 spherical splines is used to parametrize the model which is approximately equivalent to a spherical harmonic of degree 18 in resolution the model contains peak variations from prem of up to 7 per cent in s velocity and 2 5 per cent in p velocity in the upper mantle these variations decrease to 1 5 and 0 6 per cent respectively at 1000 km depth and reach 2 5 and 1 0 per cent respectively in the d region the rms ratio of s to p velocity perturbations is fairly constant between 2 0 and 2 5 in the lower mantle but a local minimum in this ratio occurs at a depth of approximately 1700 km resolution tests show that the recovery of p and s velocity is not geographically uniform but also show that this amplitude ratio is well resolved between 670 and 2700 km depth we also observe a persistent negative correlation between bulk sound and shear velocity throughout the same region of the mantle in addition the model contains a minimum correlation between p and s velocity between 670 and 1100 km this feature is supported by both the favourable outcome of resolution experiments and the poor fit provided by the starting model from the inversion in which the p and s velocities are perfectly correlated to our data set of p wave traveltimes the power spectra of both p and s velocity heterogeneity are similar although we note a slightly larger dominance of degree two in the spectra for p velocity in the mid mantle where resolution is highest

anisotropy estimate for the horn river basin from sonic logs in vertical and deviated wells abstract shale anisotropy must be quantified to obtain reliable information about reservoir fluids lithology and pore pressure from seismic data failure to account for anisotropy in seismic processing can lead to errors in normal moveout nmo dip moveout dmo migration time to depth conversion and amplitude variation with offset avo analysis kriged estimates of density vertical compressional wave and shear wave velocities were derived from vertical wells in an area of interest in the horn river resource play in northeastern british columbia the kriged predictions were compared with measured logs along the trajectory of a deviated well whereas the density comparison provided a blind test of kriging accuracy because density is scalar and independent of well deviation the same comparison for sonic velocities revealed that they are systematically higher than the kriged vertical velocities this difference was used to estimate anisotropy parameters at the location of the deviated well the fac

lattice preferred orientation and seismic anisotropy in sedimentary rocks summary although it is well known that sedimentary rocks can be seismically anisotropic there have been few detailed investigations of the underlying cause of such anisotropy here we investigate anisotropy due to the preferred orientation of minerals or lattice preferred orientation lpo in a suite of sedimentary rocks seismic properties are predicted by averaging single crystal elastic constants of minerals according to their crystal orientation and modal volume fraction in the rock aggregate both electron backscattered diffraction ebsd and x ray texture goniometry xtg are tested as quantitative techniques for measuring the lpo of sedimentary rocks although ebsd has promise for future lpo measurements in polymineralic sedimentary rocks problems currently remain in measuring low symmetry phases e g feldspars and very small clay or mica particles however the lpo of very fine grained phyllosilicates can be measured using xtg and the lpo of low symmetry minerals can be measured using manual ebsd pattern analysis here we use such a hybrid approach to estimate lpo in a suite of sedimentary samples the seismic properties calculated from lpo data show anisotropy values for p waves ranging from 1 5 per cent in sandstones to over 3 5 per cent in a siltstone to 12 per cent in a shale the effect of thin multilayering on long wavelength propagation in a siltstone is predicted by applying backus type averaging the layering does not enhance the anisotropy because of the small differences in density and in elasticity between the two layer types the lpo of phyllosilicates and to a lesser extent dolomite and siderite seem to contribute significantly to the seismic anisotropy of phyllosilicate rich rocks siltstones and shales the weak lpo of quartz in sandstones causes a few per cent anisotropy cumulatively our results suggest that field observations of seismic anisotropy have the potential to be used as an indicator of rock lithology

stress induced versus lithological anisotropy in compacted claystones and soft shales shales are anisotropic most definitions of shale in corporate this attribute either by referring to fissility and existence of cleavage planes or to anisotropic texture resulting in anisotropy of physical properties on many length scales definitions of shale scatter though some focus on a high content of clay minerals as characteristic of a shale while others consider a large amount of fine grains 2 m as sufficient in a rock mechanical context it is natural to define shale as a rock in which clay minerals constitute the load bearing framework this means that gas shales in oil field terminology are strictly speaking not shales according to a geological or a geomechanical perspective still these materials have a lot in common with classically defined shales e g low permeability and anisotropy

systematic biases in subduction zone hypocenters 1 earthquake hypocenters from global datasets commonly have regional biases in their locations due to the use of a one dimensional velocity model in their location to analyze this effect we group intermediate depth earthquakes into forty four 500 km long sections of subduction zone we relocate earthquakes in each group relative to one another and in a three dimensional global velocity model hypocenters shift up to 25 km regionally when these effects are included most earthquakes in circum pacific subduction zones are pulled toward the pacific location uncertainties from the relative relocations are reduced to one fifth of those from single event locations wadati benioff zone thicknesses are reduced to two thirds of their original thickness these biases alter estimates of depth to slab beneath arc volcanoes up to 50 km and alter measurements such as the volume of mantle wedge available for water storage or melt generation and the size of the thrust zone on which large earthquakes can occur

velocity anisotropy in shales a petrophysical study using ultrasonic velocity and anisotropy measurements on a variety of shales with different clay and kerogen content clay mineralogy and porosity at a wide range of effective pressure we find that elastic anisotropy of shales increases substantially with compaction the effect is attributed to both porosity reduction and smectite to illite transformation with diagenesis a means of kerogen content mapping using velocity versus porosity crossplot for shales is shown matrix anisotropy of shales dramatically increases with kerogen reaching the maximum values of about 0 4 at total organic carbon toc 15 20 a strong chemical softening effect was found in shales containing even minor amounts of swelling smectite clay when saturated with aqueous solution this effect results in a significant p wave anisotropy reduction as compared to dry and oil saturated shales since mature black shales are normally oil wet this effect can only have a local significance restricted to the wellbore wall accurate measurements of phase velocities including velocities at a 45 direction to the bedding plane allow us to immediately calculate elastic stiffnesses and anisotropic parameters intrinsic high pressure properties of shales display an e 0 relation introduction of the bedding parallel microcracks in overpressured shales results in a decrease when fully fluid saturated and a increase when partially gas saturated with a characteristic effect on the shape of the p wave velocity surface at small angles of incidence filtering the contribution of the intrinsic anisotropy of shales it is possible to estimate the pore fluid phase microcrack density and aspect ratio parameters using seismic anisotropy measurements

seismic anisotropy of shales shales are a major component of sedimentary basins and they play a decisive role in fluid flow and seismic wave propagation because of their low permeability and anisotropic microstructure shale anisotropy needs to be quantified to obtain reliable information on reservoir fluid lithology and pore pressure from seismic data and to understand time to depth conversion errors and non hyperbolic moveout a single anisotropy parameter thomsen s parameter is sufficient to explain the difference between the small offset normal moveout velocity and vertical velocity and to interpret the small offset avo response the sign of this parameter is poorly understood with both positive and negative values having been reported in the literature is sensitive to the compliance of the contact regions between clay particles and to the degree of disorder in the orientation of clay particles if the ratio of the normal to shear compliance of the contact regions exceeds a critical value the presence of these regions acts to increase and a change in the sign of from the negative values characteristic of clay minerals to the positive values commonly reported for shales may occur misalignment of the clay particles can also lead to a positive value of for transverse isotropy the elastic anisotropy parameters can be written in terms of the coefficients w 200 and w 400 in an expansion of the clay particle orientation distribution function in generalized legendre functions for a given value of w 200 decreasing w 400 leads to an increase in while for fixed w 400 increases with increasing w 200 perfect alignment of clay particles with normals along the symmetry axis corresponds to the maximum values of w 200 and w 400 given by w max 200 10 8 2 and w max 400 3 2 8 2 a comparison of the predictions of the theory with laboratory measurements shows that most shales lie in a region of the w 200 w 400 plane defined by w 400 w 200 w max 400 w max 200

a practical method for estimating effective parameters of anisotropy from reflection seismic data the location of any event imaged by p wave reflection seismic data beneath a tilted transversely isotropic tti overburden is shifted laterally if isotropic velocities are used during data processing the magnitude of the shift depends on five independent parameters overburden thickness angle of tilt symmetry axis velocity and the thomsen anisotropy parameters and the shift also varies with source receiver offset we have developed a procedure to estimate these five parameters when the tilt of the symmetry axis from the vertical is equal to the dip of the tti layer except in the special cases transverse isotropy with vertical or horizontal axis of symmetry we observe three attributes of seismic data processed using isotropic velocities the zero offset arrival time of a selected reflection the difference in arrival time between a near offset and a far offset arrival and the difference in imaged location smear of this target event between the same offsets we then perform a cascaded scan of t

structure of the benioff zone beneath the shumagin islands alaska relocation of local earthquakes using three dimensional ray tracing seismic rays are traced through a prescribed three dimensional inhomogeneity that simulates the subducted slab below the shumagin islands region to calculate local station delays for a given hypocenter and a slab model hypocenters determined by the shumagin seismic network are then relocated using the station delays a flat layered velocity structure and a standard earthquake location computer program station delays are calculated for 12 hypocenters with respect to six different slab models to identify the slab model that is most consistent with the available arrival time and waveform data a set of path corrections that is calculated for each grid point station pair on a preliminary grid of 36 points in the depth range from 60 to 300 km is used to recalculate the hypocenters for all of the 1982 earthquakes with depths greater than 50 km application of this method to data from 1982 for the digitally recording shumagin seismic network shows the following results 1 a previously observed apparent increase in dip of the subducted slab at depths of 100 km disappears 2 the subducted slab can be modeled as a dipping structure that dips at a constant angle of 45 toward north northwest at depths between 80 and 250 300 km and has a 7 higher velocity than the surrounding mantle 3 hypocenters determined from shumagin network data are located only 10 20 km south of high quality hypocenters determined from teleseismic data alone 4 qualitative comparison of digitally recorded seismograms with calculated ray paths shows enrichment of high frequency coda possible converted phases and low amplitudes of first p arrivals for rays that travel mostly along the slab conversely for rays that travel almost vertically through the upper plate the seismograms show a high amplitude of first p arrivals that are followed by an insignificant coda and low amplitude s waves

active accommodation of plate convergence in southern iran earthquake locations triggered aseismic slip and regional strain rates 1 we present a catalog of interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar constraints on deformation that occurred during earthquake sequences in southern iran between 1992 and 2011 and explore the implications on the accommodation of large scale continental convergence between saudi arabia and eurasia within the zagros mountains the zagros mountains a salt laden fold and thrust belt involving 10 km of sedimentary rocks overlying precambrian basement rocks have formed as a result of ongoing continental collision since 10 20 ma that is currently occurring at a rate of 3 cm yr we first demonstrate that there is a biased misfit in earthquake locations in global catalogs that likely results from neglect of 3 d velocity structure previous work involving two m 6 earthquakes with well recorded aftershocks has shown that the deformation observed with insar may represent triggered slip on faults much shallower than the primary earthquake which likely occurred within the basement rocks 10 km depth we explore the hypothesis that most of the deformation observed with insar spanning earthquake sequences is also due to shallow triggered slip above a deeper earthquake effectively doubling the moment release for each event we quantify the effects that this extra moment release would have on the discrepancy between seismically and geodetically constrained moment rates in the region finding that even with the extra triggered fault slip significant aseismic deformation during the interseismic period is necessary to fully explain the convergence between eurasia and saudi arabia