Published as SEG Expanded Abstracts, 2601-2606, (2016)

Microseismic source localization using time-domain path-integral migration

Yunzhi Shi$^{*1}$, Dmitrii Merzlikin$^1$, and Sergey Fomel$^1$
$^1$The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract:

Localization of passive seismic sources is crucial for real-time monitoring of hydraulic fracturing. Using the similarity of diffraction imaging and passive seismic imaging, we propose a method that uses path-integral formulation to apply diffraction-type migration on time-shifted microseismic records and to focus seismic energy focuses at correct onsets and accurate locations in time coordinates. An efficient workflow is applied to do path-integral migration based on analytical integration. Passive seismic sources can be additionally highlighted by envelope stacking. Numerical experiments with synthetic data verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.