Developments in remote fracture imaging using seismic methods

摘要

Over the last 10 years, the petroleum exploration and production industry has been using seismic techniques to sense the presence of fractures, and it has been only within recent years that new seismic reflection methods have been developed to image complex fracturing. In addition, seismic techniques used in land petroleum exploration are now in vogue for coal mines in Australia, allowing improved underground mine planning. This paper discusses progress in sensing the presence of fractures by using three component seismic field techniques, and then moves on to discuss new evolving methods of mapping fractures using multi-azimuth 3-D seismic methods.