Numerical and Laboratory Measurements of Seismic Attenuation in Partially Saturated Rocks Available to Purchase

Estimating pore fluid properties of partially saturated porous rocks from seismic data is very important in exploration geophysics for finding economically viable hydrocarbon reservoirs and in reservoir geophysics for monitoring and optimizing production. Field data, as well as theoretical and experimental studies, show that pore fluid properties have a major effect on attenuation and velocity dispersion of seismic waves. To better understand this effect, we compare laboratory measurements and numerical computations of attenuation in the frequency range between 0.1 and 100 Hz. While in laboratory experiments all possible physical mechanisms for attenuation occur simultaneously, with numerical modeling we separately study the effects of a single physical mechanism: wave-induced fluid flow in the mesoscopic scale. We show that this mechanism can explain the attenuation measured in the laboratory experiments for the fluid-saturated sample if the anelasticity of the solid frame is taken into account.