Patent ID: 7088097
Filing Date: 2006-08-08
Classification: G01V

Abstract:
1. A method for analyzing Earth formations using measurements from a detector in response to energy imparted into the Earth formations, the measurements having at least one characteristic which exponentially reduces in magnitude with respect to time from imparting the energy, the method comprising: (a) determining, for each measurement, an N-th order integral of the value of the measurement from an initial time to the time of each measurement, wherein N represents a number of exponentially decaying measurement components in the Earth formations; (b) determining a solution to a system of linear equations relating the measurements to the integrals, the solution representing polynomial expressions of order N related to a decay rate and an initial measurement magnitude for each component; (c) solving the polynomial expressions to determine the decay rate and the initial measurement magnitudes for each component; (d) determining if the decay rates and initial magnitudes are within physically possible limits; and (e) incrementing the number of components, N, and repeating (a) through (e) until at least one of the decay rates or at least one of the initial magnitudes is not within physically possible limits.