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ABSTRACT A passive seismic experiment was conducted in April/May 2010 in the Albertine Graben region in Uganda to record low-frequency seismic signals and explore the possibility of their exploitation in this area as a direct hydrocarbon indicator (DHI). Recordings were made at locations directly overlying both hydrocarbon and water-bearing strata within the sedimentary basin as well as reference sites external to the basin, directly on the basement. Contrary to findings published in some literature to date, we found that spatial variations in the analysed wavefield parameters correlate with the underlying geology rather than the presence or absence of hydrocarbons. Inversion of the surface-wave (fundamental mode) dispersion curve as well as the observed horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio of both surface and body waves provide evidence that the observed spectral variations can be explained solely by a simple layered/gradient velocity model, without the presence of any kind of anomaly that could be attributed exclusively to a hydrocarbon reservoir. Consequently, it is recommended that knowledge of the geological and velocity structure is sought when analysing passive low-frequency seismic data sets. This is a fundamental prerequisite in order to guard against misinterpretation of the spatial variation of seismic derived attributes as DHIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to compare the reliability of various methods of estimating normal rock fracture compliance from elastic wave measurements. We compare ultrasonic through-transmission laboratory measurements for a smooth fracture in a Westerly granite specimen with numerical simulations and analytical solutions. The focus is on deriving compliance from time delays. The influence of specimen and source transducer width was constrained using numerical wave simulations. We find that measured ultrasonic phase delays are better suited to estimate the fracture compliance than group delays. Using the frequency domain instead of the time domain increases the accuracy of the fracture compliance estimates. We further show that for cases where precise phase delay measurements are unavailable, employing first break times in conjunction with numerical simulations can be considered as an alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test various methods of quantifying the compliance of single and multiple rock fractures from synthetic ultrasonic data. The data are generated with a 2D discrete particle scheme which has previously been shown to treat fractures in agreement with linear-slip theory. Studying single fractures, we find that delays derived from peak amplitudes do not correspond to group delays, as might be expected. This is due to waveform distortion caused by the frequency-dependent transmission across the fracture. Instead the delays correspond to an expression for phase delays, which we derive from linear-slip theory. Phase delays are a unique function of compliance, whereas group delays are non-uniquely related to compliance. We believe that this property of group delays has hindered the wider application of deriving fracture compliances from traveltimes. We further show that transmission coefficients derived from waveform spectra yield more accurate fracture compliances than those obtained from ratios of signal peak amplitudes. We also investigate the compliance of a set of parallel fractures. Fracture compliance can only be determined from transmission coefficients if the fracture spacing is so large that the first arriving pulse is not contaminated by reverberations. In the case of contamination the direct measurement of group or phase delays is not practical. However, we demonstrate that in such cases of strong waveform distortion the coda wave interferometry method is very effective for determining relative fracture compliance. First break delays in the fracture set data are related to those observed in single fracture simulations. This means that fracture set compliance can be estimated from first break data if used together with numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]