Investigating Seismic Wave Scattering in Heterogeneous Environments and Implications for Seismic Imaging
Keywords: seismic imaging
heterogeneity
scattering
stochastic modeling
geostatistics
transmission imaging
mineral exploration
wave propagation

Inhomogeneities in the earth (fractures, layering, shape, composition) are responsible for seismic wave scattering and contribute towards amplitude, travel time, frequency and spectral fluctuations observed in seismic records. This thesis presents findings that complement our understanding of seismic scattering and imaging in heterogeneous media. Interest focused on probing the correlation between spatial variations in attributes that characterize the state (physical, chemical) of rocks and seismic waveform data with consideration towards potential implications for seismic survey design to optimize imaging, imaging with converted waves, microseismic monitoring, velocity modeling and imaging of lithological boundaries. The highlights of the research strategy include: • The use of stochastic methods to build realistic earth models that characterize the 1D, 2D and 3D spatial variations in rock properties. These petrophysical earth models are conditioned by experimental (“hard”) data such as geology, wave velocities and density from case study areas like the Bosumtwi impact crater and the base metal deposits in Nash Creek (Canada) and Thompson (Canada). The distributions of the sulfide mineralization at Nash Creek and at Thompson represent two end members of the heterogeneity spectrum. While the sulfide mineralization at Nash Creek is highly disseminated in nature, the sulfide rich zones at Thompson occur as well defined volumes (lens-shaped) having a strong density contrast with respect to the host rocks. • Analysis of modeled forward (transmitted) and backward scattered wave propagation in the heterogeneous earth models. As a result of a study aimed at correlating resonant frequencies to scale length parameters, it is observed that the efficiency of the spectral ratio method is undermined by its sensitivity to the interference between P- and S-waves as well as the impedance contrast. It is also demonstrated that travel time of direct arrivals (transmitted waves) can be used to infer structural heterogeneity and velocity distribution beyond borehole locations. However, the success of imaging with transmitted waves is subject to the influence of geology which must factor in the choice of acquisition geometry. For the first time, multivariate and multidimensional (3D) heterogeneous earth models that are conditioned by hard data from multiple boreholes are constructed. The methodology requires having at least one physical rock property attribute that is sampled along the whole borehole length. This approach helped to characterize the uncertainty in the distribution of rock densities and metal content in a study region of the Nash Creek property. The density data suggests the sulfides are disseminated and this poses challenges for both gravity and seismic imaging methods. Modeling studies suggest seismic methods will not be suited for imaging zones with such disseminated mineralization. On the other hand, when dealing with massive sulfide mineralization that has complex geology (steep dip) like the case in Thompson, the success of the seismic imaging process relies very much on the acquisition geometry as well as the variability of the physical properties of the host rock. Elastic modeling results show that a Vertical Seismic Profiling (VSP) geometry is better suited to capture the down-dip scattered wavefield from the orebody. While surface acquisition geometry with sufficient extended length in the down dip direction can also be used to detect the dipping orebody, its efficiency can however be undermined by background heterogeneity: when the scale length along the direction of dip is comparable to the dimensions of the orebody, the scattered wavefields are strong enough to mask the diffraction hyperbola generated from the ore. Moreover, the study also corroborates that converted waves generated from the scattering processes hold promise as an imaging tool for a dipping orebody as they are least affected by the scattering processes of background heterogeneity.