No description available.

No description available.

Fracture patterns control flow and transport properties in a tight gas reservoir and therefore play a great role in siting the production wells. Hence, it is very important that the exact location and orientation of fractures or fracture swarms is known. Numerical models show that the fractures may be manifested on seismograms as discrete events.A number of data processing workflows were designed and examined to enhance these fracture signals and to suppress the reflections in seismic data. The workflows were first tested on a 2D synthetic data set, and then applied to 3D field data from the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. All these workflows combine conventional processing tools which makes them easily applicable. Use of conventional P-wave data may also make this approach to locate fractures more economical than other currently available technology which often requires S-wave survey or computationally intensive inversion of data. Diode filtering and dip-filtering in the common-offset domain yield good results and work very well in the presence of flat reflectors. NMO-Dip filter depends on the NMO velocity of the subsurface, but removes both flat and slightly dipping reflectors without affecting the fracture signals. Prior application of dip-moveout correction (DMO) did not make any difference on reflections, but included some incoherent noise to the data. The Eigenvector filter performed very well on flat or near-flat reflectors and left the fracture signals almost intact, but introduced some incoherent noise in the presence of steeply dipping reflectors. Harlan's scheme and Radon filtering are very sensitive with regard to parameters selection, but perform exceptionally well on flat or near-flat reflectors. Dip-filter, Eigenvector filter, and Radon filter were also tested on 3D land data. Dip-filter and Eigenvector filter suppressed strong reflections with slight perturbations to the fracture signals. Radon filter did not produce satisfactory result due to small residual moveout difference between reflectors and fracture signals. / Master of Science

Multiple geophysical and geological data sets were compiled, reprocessed, and interpreted using state-of-the-art signal processing and modeling algorithms to characterize the complex post-Paleozoic geology that overlies the southwestern projection of the Fluorspar Area Fault Complex (FAFC) in western Kentucky. Specific data included 21.5 km of SH-wave seismic reflection, 1.5 km of P-wave seismic reflection, 2 km of electrical resistivity, vertical seismic profiles, Vp and Vs sonic-suspension logs, and 930 lithologic borehole logs. The resultant model indicates three general northeast–southwest-oriented fault zones pass through the study area as southwestern extensions of parts of the FAFC. These fault zones form two significant subparallel grabens with ancillary substructures. The geometry of the interpreted fault zones indicates that they have undergone episodic tectonic deformation since their first formation. Evidence of thickening and steeply dipping reflectors within Tertiary and Quaternary sediment in the downthrown blocks indicate syndepositional movement. Subtle thickening and lack of steeply dipping intraformational reflectors in the Cretaceous suggest a more quiescent period, with sediment deposition unconformably draping and filling the earlier Paleozoic structural surface. There is also evidence that the Tertiary and early Quaternary reactivation was associated with an extensional to compressional regional stress reversal, as manifested by the antiformal folds seen in the hanging wall reflectors and the potential small-amplitude force folds in the Quaternary alluvium, as well as a clear displacement inversion along the Metropolis-loess seismic horizon in two high-resolution reflection images. A surface shear-wave splitting experiment proved to be an efficient and effective tool for characterizing shallow subsurface azimuthally anisotropic geologic inclusions in low-impedance water-saturated sediment environments. The measured azimuthal anisotropy across a well-constrained N60ºE-striking fault exhibited a natural coordinate system that had a fast direction coincident with the fault strike and an orthogonal slow direction. This is also one indicator that faults inactive during significant geologic intervals (i.e., Holocene) do not "heal". Integrated shear-wave velocity models and electrical resistivity tomography profiles across the fault zones exhibit lower shear-wave velocities and resistivities within the deformation zones compared with values outside the boundaries. This is additional evidence that the deformed sediment does not reconsolidate or heal, but that the sediment particle configuration remains more loosely packed, providing an increase in the overall porosity (i.e., hydraulic conductivity). This can wholly or in large part explain the anomalous contaminant plume migration path that is coincident with the deformed zones of the regional gravel groundwater aquifer.

Conventionally, to speed up scientific or engineering (S&E) computation programs on general-purpose computers, one may elect to use faster CPUs, more memory, systems with more efficient (though complicated) architecture, better software compilers, or even coding with assembly languages. With the emergence of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based Reconfigurable Computing (RC) technology, numerical scientists and engineers now have another option using FPGA devices as core components to address their computational problems. The hardware-programmable, low-cost, but powerful “FPGA-enhanced computer” has now become an attractive approach for many S&E applications. A new computer architecture model for FPGA-enhanced computer systems and its detailed hardware implementation are proposed for accelerating the solutions of computationally demanding and data intensive numerical PDE problems. New FPGAoptimized algorithms/methods for rapid executions of representative numerical methods such as Finite Difference Methods (FDM) and Finite Element Methods (FEM) are designed, analyzed, and implemented on it. Linear wave equations based on seismic data processing applications are adopted as the targeting PDE problems to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new computer model. Their sustained computational performances are compared with pure software programs operating on commodity CPUbased general-purpose computers. Quantitative analysis is performed from a hierarchical set of aspects as customized/extraordinary computer arithmetic or function units, compact but flexible system architecture and memory hierarchy, and hardwareoptimized numerical algorithms or methods that may be inappropriate for conventional general-purpose computers. The preferable property of in-system hardware reconfigurability of the new system is emphasized aiming at effectively accelerating the execution of complex multi-stage numerical applications. Methodologies for accelerating the targeting PDE problems as well as other numerical PDE problems, such as heat equations and Laplace equations utilizing programmable hardware resources are concluded, which imply the broad usage of the proposed FPGA-enhanced computers.

The study area, Dhurnal oil field, is located 74 km southwest of Islamabad in the Potwar basin of Pakistan. Discovered in March 1984, the field was developed with four producing wells and three water injection wells. Three main limestone reservoirs of Eocene and Paleocene ages are present in this field. These limestone reservoirs are tectonically fractured and all the production is derived from these fractures. The overlying claystone formation of Miocene age provides vertical and lateral seal to the Paleocene and Permian carbonates. The field started production in May 1984, reaching a maximum rate of 19370 BOPD in November 1989. Currently Dhurnal‐1 (D-1) and Dhurnal‐6 (D-6) wells are producing 135 BOPD and 0.65 MMCF/D gas. The field has depleted after producing over 50 million Bbls of oil and 130 BCF of gas from naturally fractured low energy shelf carbonates of the Eocene, Paleocene and Permian reservoirs. Preliminary geological and geophysical data evaluation of Dhurnal field revealed the presence of an up-dip anticlinal structure between D-1 and D-6 wells, seen on new 2003 reprocessed data. However, this structural impression is not observed on old 1987 processed data. The aim of this research is to compare and evaluate old and new reprocessed data in order to identify possible factors affecting the structural configuration. For this purpose, a detailed interpretation of old and new reprocessed data is carried out and results clearly demonstrate that structural compartmentalization exists in Dhurnal field (based on 2003 data). Therefore, to further analyse the available data sets, processing sequences pertaining to both vintages have been examined. After great effort and detailed investigation, it is concluded that the major parameter giving rise to this data discrepancy is the velocity analysis done with different gridding intervals. The detailed and dense velocity analysis carried out on the data in 2003 was able to image the subtle anticlinal feature, which was missed on the 1987 processed seismic data due to sparse gridding. In addition to this, about 105 sq.km 3D seismic data recently (2009) acquired by Ocean Pakistan Limited (OPL) is also interpreted in this project to gain greater confidence on the results. The 3D geophysical interpretation confirmed the findings and aided in accurately mapping the remaining hydrocarbon potential of Dhurnal field.

No description available.

This thesis presents new insights into Alpine Fault structures at the drill site of the Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP)-2B at Whataroa in New Zealand. Despite the challenging conditions for seismic imaging within a glacial valley filled with sediments and steeply dipping valley flanks, several structures related to the valley itself as well as the tectonic fault system are imaged. The Alpine Fault at the West Coast in New Zealand is a major plate boundary forming a significant geohazard as large earthquakes (magnitude 7-8) occur regularly and the next earthquake is expected relatively soon. A major effort has been made to study the fault characteristics through scientific drilling in the Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) Alpine Fault with the deepest DFDP-2B borehole located in the Whataroa Valley. A great variety of seismic data are newly acquired. First, the WhataDUSIE (Whataroa Detailed University Seismic Imaging Experiment) data set is a ~5 km long 2D profile acquired in 2011 prior to the drilling. As the 2D profile could not fully explain the 3D structures in the Whataroa Valley, an extended surface and borehole data set was acquired in 2016 after the drilling. This data set consists of shorter 2D lines (< 3 km), a dense 3D-array, and vertical seismic profiling (VSP) using the DFDP-2B borehole including the fibre-optic cable. 3D seismic data proved to be essential to understand the complex 3D structures of the glacial valley and the major fault. First-arrival travel time tomography and prestack depth migration (PSDM) are applied to obtain a P-wave velocity model and seismic images of the subsurface (<5 km). In this complex setting, the Fresnel volume migration (a focusing PSDM method) proved to best obtain structural information about the subsurface. Analysing the results of the seismic data processing, two major outcomes are achieved: improved knowledge about the glacial structures of the Whataroa Valley and structural images of the Alpine Fault zone. The Whataroa Valley is an overdeepened glacial valley with details of the basement topography visible in the seismic images. A deep trough is identified south of the DFDP-2B borehole with horizontal layering of the sediments. Valley flanks are identified in both the seismic images and the P-wave velocity model, particularly the western valley flank. Thus, Quaternary and glacial processes can be analysed with the help of the newly derived seismic images. The Alpine Fault is directly imaged with the seismic data, which is the first time in this region at shallow depths (<5 km). Several shorter fault segments between depths of 0.2 km and 2.2 km dipping 40-56° to the southeast are directly imaged. Further identified reflectors and faults are interpreted to represent Alpine Fault structures in the form of a damage zone and induced faults adding further complexity to the fault zone. In conclusion, the 3D seismic results presented in this thesis provide new insights into the Whataroa subsurface. Hence, the new results form a good basis for a deeper understanding of the Alpine Fault structures and underlying processes which is important for potential future drilling but also for the estimation of the geohazard in the region.