Research and Application of Microseismic First Arrival Picking Method Based on Geophone Spacing Constraint

Abstract

Abstract Picking the first arrival of microseismic events has been widely recognized as an essential step for data processing of microseismic monitoring. In this paper, we have provided a practical method, which was developed by introducing geophone spacing constraint to original cross-correlation functions for further optimization of seismic arrival picking. First, all valuable traces are processed by a cross-correlation algorithm and time difference correction. Then, based on distance constraints between geophones, local cross-correlation is applied to manipulate those acquired records for further time difference correction and multi-trace records after the second time difference correction are superimposed to form stacking traces, followed by picking the arrivals of microseismic events using the STA/LTA method. Finally, by combining the stacking of first arrival information and the relative correction of time difference, the first arrival time of microseismic events can be obtained. The actual data processing results show that, compared with the conventional multi-trace cross-correlation method, our proposed method reasonably avoids the influence of the offset on the first arrival time, thus effectively improving the accuracy of the first arrival picking of microseismic events.