APPARENT ATTENUATION DUE TO INTRABED MULTIPLES, II

Abstract

In a paper with the same title published in Geophysics (June 1974), we showed that synthetic seismograms from two wells gave a frequency‐dependent attenuation due to intrabed multiples of about 0.06 dB/wavelength. This loss was 1/3 to 1/2 of the total attenuation found for field data on lines near the wells. Our data sufficed to confirm the conclusion of O’Doherty and Anstey that attenuation caused by intrabed multiples may be appreciable, but the number of wells was insufficient to establish the magnitude of that attenuation in general. To get a better feel for intrabed multiple‐generated attenuation, we have computed losses for 31 additional wells from basins all over the world. Sonic and, where available, density logs were digitized every foot and converted into synthetic seismograms with 50 orders of intrabed multiples. Using the technique of the 1974 paper of extending the logs and placing an isolated reflector 2000 ft below the bottom of the wells, we computed attenuation constants for plane seismic waves that had traveled down and back through the subsurfaces defined by the logs. Computed constants varied from 0.01 dB/wavelength to 0.22 dB/wavelength. Total traveltimes ranged from 0.7 to 2.7 sec; the average was 1.9 sec. Attenuation constants computed from surface seismic data near four of the 31 wells gave values 1.3 to 7 times the corresponding intrabed constants. Thus, attenuation due to intrabed multiples accounts for an appreciable fraction of the observed attenuation but by no means all of it.