Diving-wave time-lapse delay for CO2 thin layer detection

Abstract

We have derived an analytical approximate expression to estimate the delay in diving seismic waves due to thin layers of CO2. The expression is valid for high frequencies and can be used to estimate the delay in diving waves at seismic frequencies for large separations between the source and receiver (offset). The approximation may be used to assess CO2 detection limits using diving waves and to support survey planning for CO2 monitoring and full-waveform inversion (FWI) cycle skipping analysis. In this study, we analyse the diving-wave response to a thin layer of CO2 for band-limited data using acoustic finite-difference modelling, and compare the results against the analytical calculations. We find that the responses are offset-dependent and related to double- and single-leg interactions between the diving waves and the CO2. To test the methods, we created a synthetic representation of the 2010 subsurface conditions for the top CO2 layer at the Sleipner storage complex in the North Sea, by combining base and monitor post-stack seismic data with field velocity trends. Using the acoustic finite-difference method, we model pre-stack data that captures the complexity of field data and demonstrate the use of the diving-wave delay for CO2 migration monitoring and CO2 thin layer detection.