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Considering the anisotropy of the earth media is helpful in reducing the depth error between seismic and drilling and providing reliable imaging data for seismic interpretation and inversion. Transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry are the most common type of anisotropic media and have been under constant study. The separation of the P‐ and S‐wavefields, which affects the accuracy of elastic wave imaging and the inversion in transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry, is a hot research topic. Among the commonly used wavefield decoupling methods, the S‐wave is typically obtained by subtracting the P‐wave from the total wavefield. However, this kind of wavefield decoupling method often leads to severe P‐wave crosstalk in the separated S‐wavefield; thus, it needs further development. In this paper, the principle that the divergence of the S‐wave is zero is employed to solve the unresolved S‐wave elastic parameters of the S‐wave stiffness matrix by utilizing the modified zero‐order pseudo‐Helmholtz decomposition operator. The obtained S‐wave elastic parameters are employed to construct the qS‐wave stress and facilitate the derivation of the relationship between the qS‐wave particle velocity and the qS‐wave stress. Furthermore, a qS‐wave decoupling first‐order velocity–stress equation, which matches the qP‐wave decoupling first‐order velocity–stress equation, is derived. By jointly using the decoupling equations of qS‐ and qP‐wave, the separation of the P‐ and S‐wavefields in transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry is realized. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated via numerical tests conducted to assess the wavefield separation. Moreover, a complex model is employed to perform elastic reverse‐time migration, resulting in the acquisition of accurate imaging results for PP, PS, SP, and SS waves, without the presence of significant artefacts. The correctness of the qS‐wave decoupling equation in transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry is confirmed by the comparative tests using decoupling methods in isotropic media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a large body of rock-physics research, seismic wave velocity dispersion and attenuation in fluid-saturated porous rock are studied by constructing analytical or numerical models for time- or frequency-dependent dynamic (effective, or viscoelastic) moduli. A key and broadly used model of such kind is the Zener's, or the standard linear solid (SLS). This model is qualitatively successful in explaining many field and laboratory observations and serves as the key element of many generalizations such as the Burgers model for plastic deformations or the generalized SLS explaining band-limited or near-constant seismic attenuation. However, as a physical model of fluid-saturated porous rock, the SLS has several major limitations: disregard of inertial effects, absence of secondary wave modes and lack of key physical parameters such as porosity and Skempton coefficients. Grainy and porous rock is an unconsolidated material in which the effective density is frequency-dependent, and its effects on wave velocities may exceed those of the dynamic modulus. To overcome these limitations of the empirical SLS, we propose a rigorous rheologic model based on classical continuum mechanics and called the extended SLS, or eSLS. This rheology explains the available attenuation and dispersion observations equally well, but it is also close to Biot's model, honours all poroelastic relations, includes inertial effects, and reveals several new physical properties of the material. Detailed comparison of the eSLS and Biot's models gives a physical-mechanism-based classification of wave-induced fluid flow (WIFF) phenomena. In this classification, the so-called 'global-scale' flows occur in Biot's type structures within the material, whereas the 'local-scale' WIFF occurs in eSLS-type structures. Combining Biot's and eSLS models gives a broad class of rheologies for linear anelastic phenomena within rock with a single type of porosity. The model can be readily generalized to multiple porosities and different types of internal variables, such as describing squirt flows, wetting or thermoelastic effects. Modelling is conducted with relatively little effort, using a single matrix equation similar to a mechanical form of the standard SLS. By combining the eSLS and Biot's models, observations of dynamic-modulus dispersion and attenuation can be inverted for macroscopic mechanical properties of porous materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joint inversion of horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSRs) and dispersion curves (DCs) from seismic noise recordings has been extensively used to overcome the lack of inversion uniqueness in the noise-based HVSR (NHV) or DC inversions alone. Earthquake recordings contain information about the structural properties of sedimentary layers and provide body-wave data complementary to seismic noise recordings to estimate site velocity structures, particularly in the high-frequency band. We propose a joint inversion of the Rayleigh wave DC obtained from array measurements and earthquake-based HVSR (EHV). The EHV is derived from earthquake motions rather than from microtremors based on the diffuse-field theory of plane waves. We investigated the complementarity of EHV and surface-wave DC in the joint inversion through sensitivity analyses. The DC is sensitive to bedrock shear-wave velocities in the low-frequency range and is supplemented to some degree by the EHV in the high-frequency range. The EHV is more sensitive to sediment thicknesses almost over the entire frequency range. The joint inversion is implemented by a hybrid global optimization scheme that combines genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA) to avoid premature convergence in the GA. The sensitivity of inversion parameters was tested to demonstrate that the P- and S-wave velocities and thicknesses of soil layers are the dominant parameters influencing EHV and DC responses. The proposed method was validated by using synthetic models to compare the joint inversion with EHV or DC inversions alone. The joint inversion was applied to the Garner Valley Downhole Array (GVDA) data for identifying the velocity structures of the site based on earthquake and noise observations. The inversion results for the P- and S-wave velocities and thicknesses of soil layers strongly suggest that the joint inversion is an efficient method to estimate site velocity structures.

As one of wavefield separation methods in elastic reverse time migration, the decoupled wave equation succeeds to separate the particle velocity of P‐ and S‐wave without mode crosstalk. However, it fails to decouple the stress of P‐ and S‐wave which encounters with the problem of crosstalk. To overcome the crosstalk, the paper has proposed the quasi‐stress equations to decouple the stress tensor wavefields of P‐ and S‐wave based on the decoupled stress–strain relationship. Because P‐ and S‐wave stress wavefields are second‐order tensors, different from the imaging method of vector decoupled particle velocity wavefields, a double dot product imaging condition is proposed to obtain scalar images. Based on the total source‐stress tensor wavefields and separated receiver‐stress tensor wavefields, we obtain the scalar images of quasi‐PP and quasi‐PS from the stress information by the double dot product imaging condition. Several numerical examples are evaluated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the separation of P‐ and S‐wave stress and advantage of the proposed imaging condition from the second‐order stress tensor wavefields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic and electromagnetic explorations are two of the most successful geophysical applications for understanding the subsurface earth, and the joint interpretation of seismic and electromagnetic survey data can help to better characterize the rocks because they contain independent and complementary information about the rocks. However, the success of the joint interpretation depends on the understanding of the correlations between the elastic and electrical rock properties and their influencing factors. Confining pressure is an important geological parameter that has been found to give rise to linear elastic–electrical correlations in sandstones. However, it is still poorly known what controls the slopes of the pressure-dependent linear correlations, even though slope is one of the most important parameters determining the linear correlation. We make artificial sandstones with controlled porosity and permeability, respectively, and measure their pressure-dependent elastic (electrical resistivity) and electrical (P -wave velocity) properties simultaneously, as well as porosity. We show that the slopes of the measured electrical resistivity versus P -wave velocity as an implicit function of confining pressure correlate positively with the compliant porosity in all the samples. The results not only reveal the petrophysical parameter that controls the slopes of the pressure-dependent linear elastic–electrical correlations in sandstones, but also provide a basis for the discrimination of the slope-controlling parameter from the simultaneously measured elastic and electrical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]