Exercises seismic methods

Cedric Schmelzbach July 19, 2006

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1.1

Elements of seismic surveying

Elasticity
1. Dene the term Poissons ratio. What values can the Poissons ratio take? What does a Poissons ratio = 0.5 mean? 2. Write down the general equations for the velocity of compressional and shear waves in terms of bulk modulus, shear modulus, and density. How do these equations look like for waves traveling in liquids or gases? 3. Why travel compressional waves always faster than shear waves?

1.2

Reection- and transmission coecient I

1. Write down the reection and transmission coecients for a normally incident ray in terms of incident, reected and transmitted amplitudes, and in terms of the acoustic impedance. 2. What are the minimum and maximum possible values of the reection coefcient? 3. What implications has a negative reection coecient? 4. In many sedimentary areas, it is often justied to assume that the density does not change with depth. Modify your reection coecient formula derived above assuming constant density. A seismic wave travels with velocity vp = 1800 m/s and hits an interface where 25% of its energy is reected. Calculate the seismic velocity below the interface assuming no change in density. 5. Make a simple drawing with all possible reected, refracted and converted rays for a non-normally incident P -wave on an interface of acoustic impedance contrast. 6. Why does the amplitude of a seismic wave decay with increasing travel time? Do all waves decay in the same way with travel time/ distance from the source?

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1.3

Reection- and transmission coecient II

Consider the following simple two-layer horizontally stratied Earth model (Table 1): Layer 1 Layer 2 Thickness [m] 100 P -wave velocity [m/s] 1500 3000 Density [kg/m3 ] 1000 2500

Table 1: Two-layer horizontally stratied Earth model. 1. Compute (i) the acoustic impedance for the two layers, (ii) the reection and (iii) transmission coecient for a normally incident ray (in terms of amplitudes); 2. Draw the travel-time curve for direct, reected and refracted rays; 3. Determine (i) critical angle, (ii) the critical distance, (iii) and the crossover distance.

1.4

Resolution

Write down the equations which are generally used to quantify the horizontal and vertical resolution of a reection-seismic survey. Compute and discuss the horizontal and vertical resolution of the following three seismic experiments: 1. A very high-resolution survey mapping a target horizon (e.g., the water table) in 10 m depth, employing a high-frequency source with a dominant frequency of 200 Hz. Assume a seismic velocity of vp = 800 m/s for unconsolidated sediments. 2. A high-resolution seismic survey to determine the shape of the bedrock in around 200 m depth of a valley lled with alluvial sediments, which have a velocity of vp = 2400 m/s. The employed hammer source provides frequency of around 80 Hz. 3. A seismic survey of a mining company conducted in a crystalline-rock area with velocities of vp = 6000 m/s. A dynamite source generates frequencies of around 150 Hz. How could the resolution be improved? What other factors aect the resolution of seismic data?

2
2.1

Seismic reection surveying

Short questions
1. What is a common shot point gather? What a common receiver gather?

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2. Describe briey what a common midpoint (CMP) gather is. Why should this term not be confused with the term common depth point (CDP) gather? 3. Why does one apply normal moveout (NMO) corrections to CMP-sorted data? For which recording geometry are NMO corrections not necessary?

2.2

Analyzing a eld shot gather

Figure 1a displays a raw shot gather recorded in southern spain during a reectionseismic campaign with the goal to image the entire crust down to Moho found at around 11 km depth. Figure 1b shows the same shot gather after some initial processing steps, which had the goal to remove wave trains A, B, and C to enhance event R. In this exercise, you will identify the dierent wave trains observed. 1. This reection-seismic survey employed geophones which only measure the vertical ground motion (Geophones actually measure the vertical ground velocity). Which wave types can be recorded by these geophones and which ones not? 2. Write down the ratio vp /vs in terms of the Poissons ratio . Typically, consolidated rocks have a Poissons ratio of about 0.25 and it is reasonable to assume that this value also applies for the rocks probed in the south-spain survey. Evaluate your expression with = 0.25 to have a rough idea about the vp /vs ratio. 3. Determine the apparent linear moveout velocity of events A, B, and C in Figure 1a and compute also the velocity ratios between phase A and B, and B and C. 4. Using all information from the previous points, identify the wave trains A, B, and C! 5. Consider now Figure 1b. Name events R. Why are events R not symmetric at the shot point at zero oset?

2.3

Zero-oset sections

Figure 2 shows three structural subsurface models. 1. Draw the seismic sections that would be recorded by a zero-oset experiment (coincident source and receiver) conducted at the surface above the structural models (assume constant velocities). 2. These zero-oset seismic sections (probably) do not exactly look like to structural models they originate from. How is the processing step called which tries to reveal the original structural model from a seismic section?

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Figure 1: (a) Raw and (b) processed shot gather from a reection-seismic survey.

2.4

Additional exercises

Solve in Keary et al. (2002)s An Introduction to geophysical exploration problems problems 2, 4, and 6, Chapter 4.

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3.1

Seismic refraction surveying

General questions
1. Compare and contrast the reection-seismic and refraction-seismic method in terms of physical properties these methods measure, survey parameters, data analysis, etc. 2. You are asked to determine the depth to the water table in a gravelly environment. You know that the seismic velocity increases from 1800 m/s to 2200 m/s at the water table and you were told that the water table is in around 20 to 30 m depth. What is the shortest shot-receiver distance you could measure the refracted wave? Say you have a 24-channel seismograph and you want to measure the direct wave with 4 geophones, and use the remaining receivers to measure the refracted wave over a time of at least 100 ms, what geophone spacing do you need? 3. Assume now that you are asked to determine the depth to the crystalline bedrock in around 20 to 30 m depth. Velocities change form 1800 m/s to 5500 m/s. What is now the shortest shot-receiver distance you could measure the refracted wave? If the bedrock has a dip component in the prole direction, how would your estimate qualitatively change?

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Figure 2: Structural models.

3.2

Reversed seismic survey

The following data set was obtained from a reversed seismic refraction survey (Table 2). The two shot points A and B were separated by 2700 m, the length of the geophone line was 3600 m. When shooting at A, 12 geophones in direction of B were active. Likewise, 12 geophones in direction of A were used when shooting at B. 1. Draw a t x graph and determine the apparent velocities, and compute the true velocities assuming planar interfaces. 2. Determine the dip and orientation of the refractor. 3. Compute the perpendicular distances to the refractor beneath both shot points.

3 SEISMIC REFRACTION SURVEYING Shot point A Travel time [s] 0.139 0.280 0.415 0.556 0.695 0.833 0.975 1.080 1.170 1.255 1.399 1.424 Shot point B Travel time [s] 0.140 0.275 0.420 0.556 0.695 0.833 0.970 1.085 1.170 1.223 1.276 1.329

Distance [m] 300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400 2700 3000 3300 3600

Table 2: Measurements from a refraction seismic survey.

3.3

Additional problems

Solve in Keary et al. (2002)s An Introduction to geophysical exploration problems problems 1, 2, and 3, Chapter 5.