A Novel Polarity Correction Method Developed on Cross Correlation Analysis for Downhole Migration-Based Location of Microseismic Events

Qinghui Mao, Tahir Azeem, Zhixian Gui, Peng Wang and Yu Zhong
Additional contact information
Qinghui Mao: Key Laboratory of Exploration Technologies for Oil and Gas Resources, Ministry of Education, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, China
Tahir Azeem: Department of Earth Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Zhixian Gui: Key Laboratory of Exploration Technologies for Oil and Gas Resources, Ministry of Education, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, China
Peng Wang: Key Laboratory of Exploration Technologies for Oil and Gas Resources, Ministry of Education, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, China
Yu Zhong: Hubei Subsurface Multi-Scale Imaging Key Laboratory, Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: Migration-based approaches depending on waveform stacking are generally used to locate the microseismic events in hydro-fracturing monitoring. A simple waveform stacking with polarity correction normally provides better results than any of the absolute value-based methods. However, the existing polarity estimation method based on cross correlation analysis selects only individual waveform as a reference waveform, which may affect the precision of migration-based methods. Therefore, a novel polarity correction method based on cross correlation analysis is introduced for a migration-based location in order to accurately locate the microseismic events in a borehole system. The proposed method selects all waveforms from one event having high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as corresponding reference waveforms, instead of only selecting a single high SNR waveform from one target event as the corresponding reference waveform. Compared with the above-mentioned conventional method, this proposed method provides a more accurate migration-based location of microseismic events with minimum error. The presented method was successfully tested on synthetic and field data acquired from a single monitoring well during a hydraulic fracturing process. Our study distinctly demonstrates that the proposed method provides more robust and reliable results, even in low SNR circumstances.

Keywords: polarity correction; cross correlation analysis; migration-based location; microseismic events; hydraulic fracturing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/8/2772/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/8/2772/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:8:p:2772-:d:790461

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().