Simulation of Seismic Wave Propagation in a Multicomponent Oil Deposit Model

Abstract

A seismic survey is perhaps the most common geophysical technique used to locate potential oil and natural gas deposits in the geologic structures. Thanks to the rapid development of modern high-performance computing systems, the computer simulation technology plays a crucial role in processing the field data. The precision of the full-waveform inversion (FWI) essentially depends on the quality of the direct problem solver. This paper introduces a new approach to the numerical simulation of wave processes in complex heterogeneous media. The linear elasticity theory is applied to simulate the dynamic behavior of curvilinear geological layers. In contrast to the conventional approach, the producing oil formation is described in the frame of a porous fluid-filled model. It allows us to explicitly take into account the porosity, oil density, and other physical parameters. The method of setting the physically correct contact conditions between the reservoir and the geological massif based on the transport equation solution for Riemann invariants was successfully implemented. The grid-characteristic method, previously thoroughly verified on acoustic and elastic problems, was adopted. The explicit time-stepping procedure was derived for a two-dimensional case with a method of splitting along coordinate axes. This method guarantees the preservation of the scheme approximation order. The potential application of the new method to a complex model based on the data from the famous Russian oil deposit — the Bazhen Formation — is demonstrated. The seismic responses were registered on the wave fields and synthetic seismograms. The novelty of this paper relates to a uniform approach to the wave propagation simulation in the heterogeneous medium containing contacting subdomains with different rheology types.