Monika Ivandic

Impact of bending related faulting on the seismic properties of the incoming oceanic plate offshore of Nicaragua

Impact of bending related faulting on the seismic properties of the incoming oceanic plate offshore of Nicaragua

Time-lapse Analysis of Sparse 3D Seismic Data from the CO2 Storage Pilot Site at Ketzin, Germany

In April 2004, a research pilot project in the German town of Ketzin started as the first onshore CO2 storage project in Europe. Injection started in June 2008 and until the latest repeat survey in February 2011 around 45 kilotons of CO2 had been injected into a saline aquifer at approximately 630 m depth. Different seismic methods, such as time-lapse Vertical Seismic Profiling, Crosswell, Moving Source Profiling and surface seismics have been employed to detect and monitor changes in the reservoir. We present here time-lapse results from sparse pseudo-3D seismic surveying with a radial distribution of acquisition profiles directed towards the approximate location of the injection well, which were acquired to link downhole surveys with full 3D surface seismic surveys. The results are consistent with the 3D seismic time-lapse studies over the injection site and show that the sparse 3D geometry can be used to qualitatively map the CO2 in the reservoir at a significantly lower effort than the full 3D surveying. The last repeat survey indicates preferential migration of the CO2 to the west. There are no indications of migration into the caprock on either of the repeat surveys. The same observation was obtained from the full 3D dataset.

Application of seismic full waveform inversion to monitor CO2 injection: modelling and a real data example from the Ketzin site, Germany

Seismic full waveform inversion (waveform tomography) is a method to reconstruct the underground velocity field in high resolution using seismic data. The method was first introduced during the 1980’s and became computationally feasible during the late 1990’s when the method was implemented in the frequency domain. This work presents three case studies and one synthetic benchmark of full waveform inversion applications. Two of the case studies are focused on time-lapse cross-well and 2D reflection seismic data sets acquired at the Ketzin CO2 geological storage site. These studies are parts of the CO2SINK and CO2MAN projects. The results show that waveform tomography is more effective than traveltime tomography for the CO2 injection monitoring at the Ketzin site for the cross-well geometry. For the surface data sets we find it is difficult to recover the true value of the velocity anomaly due to the injection using the waveform inversion method, but it is possible to qualitatively locate the distribution of the injected CO2. The results agree well with expectations based upon conventional 2D CDP processing methods and more extensive 3D CDP processing methods in the area. A further investigation was done to study the feasibility and efficiency of seismic full waveform inversion for time-lapse monitoring of onshore CO2 geological storage sites using a reflection seismic geometry with synthetic data sets. The results show that waveform inversion may be a good complement to standard CDP processing when monitoring CO2 injection. The choice of method and strategy for waveform inversion is quite dependent on the goals of the time-lapse monitoring of the CO2 injection. The last case study is an application of the full waveform inversion method to two crooked profiles at the Forsmark site in eastern central Sweden. The main goal of this study was to help determine if the observed reflections are mainly due to fluid filled fracture zones or mafic sills. One main difficulty here is that the profiles have a crooked line geometry which corresponds to 3D seismic geometry, but a 2D based inversion method is being used. This is partly handled by a 3D to 2D coordinate projection method from traveltime inversion. The results show that these reflections are primarily due to zones of lower velocity, consistent with them being generated at water filled fracture zones.

Geophysical Monitoring Of CO2 at the Ketzin Storage Site - The Results of the Second 3D Repeat Seismic Survey

Various geophysical methods applied at the Ketzin storage site have successfully imaged migration of the injected CO2 within the target reservoir zone of the ~ 650-680 m deep saline aquifer. Results from the first 3D repeat seismic survey conducted in 2009, after about 15 months of injection (~22,000 t), showed that the CO2 plume was concentrated around the injection well with a lateral extent of approximately 300-400 m and a thickness of about 5–20 m. The plume, however, was not radially symmetric, but had a rather westerly trending tendency, revealing the heterogeneous nature of the reservoir. A second 3D repeat seismic survey was acquired in the Summer/Fall of 2012, when ~ 61,000 tons of CO2 had been injected. Preliminary results show further growth and migration of the anomaly which has been interpreted to be induced by the CO2 injection. It is similar in shape to the one observed at the time of the first repeat survey, but larger by approximately 100-200 m and much stronger with the highest amplitudes nearly centered at the injection well. There is still a pronounced westward propagating tendency. The new seismic data show no indication of upward migration into the caprock.

Structure of oceanic crust and serpentinization at subduction trenches

The subducting oceanic lithosphere may carry a large amount of chemically bound water into the deep Earth interior, returning water to the mantle, facilitating melting, and hence keeping the mantle mobile and, in turn, nurturing plate tectonics. Bending-related faulting in the trench–outer rise region prior to subduction has been recognized to be an important process, promoting the return flux of water into the mantle. Extensional faults in the trench–outer rise are opening pathways into the lithosphere, supporting hydration of the lithosphere, including alteration of dry peridotite to water-rich serpentine. In this paper, we review and summarize recent work suggesting that bend faulting is indeed a key process in the global water cycle, albeit not yet well understood. Two features are found in a worldwide compilation of tomographic velocity models derived from wide-angle seismic data, indicating that oceanic lithosphere is strongly modified when approaching a deep-sea trench: (1) seismic velocities in both the lower crust and upper mantle are significantly reduced compared to the structure found in the vicinity of mid-ocean ridges and in mature crust away from subduction zones; and (2) profiles shot perpendicular to the trench show both crustal and upper mantle velocities decreasing systematically approaching the trench axis, highlighting an evolutionary process because velocity reduction is related to deformation, alteration, and hydration. P-wave velocity anomalies suggest that mantle serpentinization at trenches is a global feature of all subducting oceanic plates older than 10–15 Ma. Yet, the degree of serpentinization in the uppermost mantle is not firmly established, but may range from 1.9 in the trench, supporting the development of water-filled cracks where bend faulting occurs. In the mantle, the Vp/Vs ratio increases from ∼1.75 in the outer rise to values of >1.8 at the trench, indicating the increasing intensity of serpentinization.

Feasibility of utilizing wavelet phase to map the CO2 plume at the Ketzin pilot site, Germany

ABSTRACT Spectral decomposition is a powerful tool that can provide geological details dependent upon discrete frequencies. Complex spectral decomposition using inversion strategies differs from conventional spectral decomposition methods in that it produces not only frequency information but also wavelet phase information. This method was applied to a time‐lapse three‐dimensional seismic dataset in order to test the feasibility of using wavelet phase changes to detect and map injected carbon dioxide within the reservoir at the Ketzin carbon dioxide storage site, Germany. Simplified zero‐offset forward modelling was used to help verify the effectiveness of this technique and to better understand the wavelet phase response from the highly heterogeneous storage reservoir and carbon dioxide plume. Ambient noise and signal‐to‐noise ratios were calculated from the raw data to determine the extracted wavelet phase. Strong noise caused by rainfall and the assumed spatial distribution of sandstone channels in the reservoir could be correlated with phase anomalies. Qualitative and quantitative results indicate that the wavelet phase extracted by the complex spectral decomposition technique has great potential as a practical and feasible tool for carbon dioxide detection at the Ketzin pilot site.

The First Post-injection Seismic Monitor Survey at the Ketzin Pilot CO2 Storage Site: Results from Time-lapse Analysis

The injection of CO2 at the Ketzin pilot CO2 storage site started in June 2008 and ended in August 2013. During the 62 months of injection, a total amount of about 67 kt of CO2 was injected into a ...

Application of seismic waveform tomography to monitoring of CO2 injection: modeling and a real data example from the Ketzin site, Germany

Seismic full waveform inversion (waveform tomography) is a method to reconstruct the underground velocity field in high resolution using seismic data. The method was first introduced during the 1980’s and became computationally feasible during the late 1990’s when the method was implemented in the frequency domain. This work presents three case studies and one synthetic benchmark of full waveform inversion applications. Two of the case studies are focused on time-lapse cross-well and 2D reflection seismic data sets acquired at the Ketzin CO2 geological storage site. These studies are parts of the CO2SINK and CO2MAN projects. The results show that waveform tomography is more effective than traveltime tomography for the CO2 injection monitoring at the Ketzin site for the cross-well geometry. For the surface data sets we find it is difficult to recover the true value of the velocity anomaly due to the injection using the waveform inversion method, but it is possible to qualitatively locate the distribution of the injected CO2. The results agree well with expectations based upon conventional 2D CDP processing methods and more extensive 3D CDP processing methods in the area. A further investigation was done to study the feasibility and efficiency of seismic full waveform inversion for time-lapse monitoring of onshore CO2 geological storage sites using a reflection seismic geometry with synthetic data sets. The results show that waveform inversion may be a good complement to standard CDP processing when monitoring CO2 injection. The choice of method and strategy for waveform inversion is quite dependent on the goals of the time-lapse monitoring of the CO2 injection. The last case study is an application of the full waveform inversion method to two crooked profiles at the Forsmark site in eastern central Sweden. The main goal of this study was to help determine if the observed reflections are mainly due to fluid filled fracture zones or mafic sills. One main difficulty here is that the profiles have a crooked line geometry which corresponds to 3D seismic geometry, but a 2D based inversion method is being used. This is partly handled by a 3D to 2D coordinate projection method from traveltime inversion. The results show that these reflections are primarily due to zones of lower velocity, consistent with them being generated at water filled fracture zones.

Preliminary Seismic Time-lapse Results from the First Post-injection Survey at the Ketzin Pilot Site

Since the CO2SINK project start in April 2004, different methods involving seismics, geoelectrics andpressure-temperature monitoring have been applied at the Ketzin pilot site to map geological str ...

Monitoring CO2 saturation using time-lapse amplitude versus offset analysis of 3D seismic data from the Ketzin CO2 storage pilot site, Germany

The injection of CO2 at the Ketzin pilot site commenced in June 2008 and was terminated in August 2013 after 67 kT had been injected into a saline formation at a depth of 630–650 m. As part of the site monitoring program, four 3D surface seismic surveys have been acquired to date, one baseline and three repeats, of which two were conducted during the injection period, and one during the post-injection phase. The surveys have provided the most comprehensive images of the spreading CO2 plume within the reservoir layer. Both petrophysical experiments on core samples from the Ketzin reservoir and spectral decomposition of the 3D time-lapse seismic data show that the reservoir pore pressure change due to CO2 injection has a rather minor impact on the seismic amplitudes. Therefore, the observed amplitude anomaly is interpreted to be mainly due to CO2 saturation. In this study, amplitude versus offset analysis has been applied to investigate the amplitude versus offset response from the top of the sandstone reservoir during the injection and post-injection phases, and utilize it to obtain a more quantitative assessment of the CO2 gaseous saturation changes. Based on the amplitude versus offset modelling, a prominent decrease in the intercept values imaged at the top of the reservoir around the injection well is indeed associated solely with the CO2 saturation increase. Any change in the gradient values, which would, in case it was positive, be the only signature induced by the reservoir pressure variations, has not been observed. The amplitude versus offset intercept change is, therefore, entirely ascribed to CO2 saturation and used for its quantitative assessment. The estimated CO2 saturation values around the injection area in the range of 40%–60% are similar to those obtained earlier from pulsed neutron-gamma logging. The highest values of 80% are found in the second seismic repeat in close vicinity to the injection and observation wells.