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ESTIMATION OF QUALITY FACTORS FROM CMP RECORDS AND


VSP DATA



Djeddi Mbk and

Mender M.
*

Laboratory of Earth Physics, MHamed Bougara University, Boumerdes, Algeria

If you use data from this work you need to quote the reference in the bibliography as
follows:

DJEDDI Mabrouk and MENDER M: Estimation of quality factoring from CMP records
and VSP data. 13pp, 12 figures. Laboratory of Physics of the Earth, University
M'Hamed Bougara , Boumerdes - Algeria, 2013
http://djeddimabrouk.fr.gd/

Abstract
During its propagation through a medium, the elastic energy associated with the seismic wave is
gradually absorbed by the medium due to internal friction, eventually ending up as heat energy. This
is known as absorption (or inelastic attenuation) and will eventually cause the total disappearance of
the seismic wave. The rate of inelastic attenuation itself contains additional information about the
lithology and reservoir conditions such as porosity, saturation and pore pressure so it can be used as
a useful reservoir characterization tool and as an absorption compensation factor to enhance seismic
data resolution in seismic data processing. The absorptive property of a medium can be described by
a quality factor Q, which determines the energy decay and a velocity dispersion relationship. The
quality factor and the velocity conduct the propagation of seismic energy in the earth.
To compensate for absorption, were quires an estimation of the quality factor (Q). Methods for
estimating Q-factor from surface seismic data are not well developed .However; some research has
been published concerning the estimation of Q-factor from vertical seismic profile (VSP) and cross
well data.
This paper presents a synthesis of the most important methods used to estimate the Q-factor
directly from common midpoint (CMP) gathers by assuming that the amplitudes spectrum of the
seismic source signature may be modelled by that of a Ricker wavelet, we derive an analytical
relation between Q-factor and seismic data peak frequency variation both along offset and vertical
time direction. The Q-factor is estimated from CMP gathers using a layer-stripping approach. And for
the vertical seismic profile (VSP) one technique we have employed for Q estimation is the spectral
ration method. Our VSP-derived Q
p
curve shows an inverse linear relationship with the VSP-derived
V
p
/V
s
curve. Finally, the bulk value of Q
p
, V
p
/V
s
and V
p
are estimated for three main geological
formations in the oilfield part.
Key words: Quality factor, Vertical seismic profiling, Amplitude decay, analytical signal, absorption.

INTRODUCTION
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In seismic exploration, the propagation of seismic waves in the earth is affected by the anisotropic
and the heterogeneity of the medium. Therefore, the visco-elasticity of the earth materials causes
seismic energy dissipation, and thus decreases the amplitude and modies the frequency content of
propagating waves. This phenomenon of wave energy dissipation is called seismic absorption or
seismic attenuation. Otherwise, the effect of attenuation is a relative loss of high-frequency
components of a propagating wave. As a result, a seismic wave propagating in an attenuating
medium will become richer in low frequencies, thus changing shape, in addition to suffering an
overall amplitude reduction. The seismic attenuation property of a medium is usually described bya
quality factor designated by Q. Many algorithms to estimate Q values have been published. And the
most popular is the spectral ratio method (Tonn, 1991). The objectives of Q estimation can be
grouped into two categories, one is for Q compensation, and another one is for reservoir description.
For Q compensation, generally, we only require absorptive information for major layers. For reservoir
characterisation, we require Q information of higher resolution for the study affine layers. In
reservoir description, characterised by porous rocks saturated with fluid, generally, a strong
attenuation can be observed. In a medium, shear and compressional waves travel at different
velocities. They could show different attenuation on their wave-paths depending on the fluid
contenting rock fractures. Many scientists have investigated the characteristics of shear wave
attenuation in seismic data.
Seismic attenuation is usually categorized into scattering attenuation and intrinsic attenuation.
Scattering attenuation is generally caused by three dimensional heterogeneities in the subsurface
that distribute wave energy in arbitrary directions. Intrinsic attenuation is caused by internal friction
among grains in the rock matrix, and the relative movement between the solid rock matrix and the
pore uid, when a seismic wave travels through loosely consolidated or porous media. Internal
friction and uid ow are considered directly related to rock porosity, permeability and the uid
content in the empty space.
In this paper we start by showing the development of analytical formula that can be used to estimate
Q from a CMP gather, and also from a stacked seismic trace. Attenuation of the received signal sis
only determined by the interval Q-factor sand travel times in each layer by assuming that the
amplitude spectrum of a seismic wavelet is like Ricker one. Interval Q-factors can be computed
directly from the variation of the peak frequency of a spectrum as a function of time. Results show
that the relationship determines interval Q-factor values with reasonable accuracy. Then
we use the spectral ration method to estimate interval quality factor from zero-offsets VSP data. We
calculate Vp and Vs values from the direct arriving energy in the VSP. The VSP-derived attenuation
(1/Qp) shows a quasi-linear relationship with the Vp/Vs values. Finally, the bulk values of Qp, Vp, and
Vp/Vs are estimated for three major geological intervals in the oilfield zone. The VSP data used in this
paper is of two type of source: a vertical vibrator for P-wave generation and a horizontal vibrator for
S-wave generation. There are 130 3-component geophone levels ranging from 198 m to 1165 m at
7.5 m depth spacing.
Definition of Q-factor The seismic quality factor Q, which is an intrinsic property of rocks. Formally, Q
is defined as a dimensionless measure of the inelasticity and is given by:


E
E
Q
A
= t 2
3


Where is the fraction of energy lost per cycle. And the amplitude A of a wave at a particular
frequency is proportional to E (Aki and Richards, 1980), thus

Where is the amplitude at the start of a cycle and represents the amplitude decay in a cycle.
We can rewrite A as a function of distance A(z) and,

Designing by the wavelength given in terms of frequency and phase velocity by


Combining the three equations above we can obtain
Estimation Q-factor from CMP gathers
Peak Frequency Variation and Quality factor estimation from surface seismic data
In seismic processing, the inverse Q-factor filtering is often used to remove the absorption effect.
Therefore, to estimate Q from seismic data is, at first to examine the variation of a seismic wavelet
with time, and then calculate a Q value from the variation of the wavelet shape or spectrum. By
assuming that the amplitude spectrum of a seismic wavelet is like that of a Ricker wavelet, this part
of the paper derives an analytical formula which
allows a Q value to be calculated from the
spectral peak frequency variation. The time
domain and frequency domain methods are
illustrated in Fig.1
There are two well-known methods based on
frequency shift method to estimate quality
factor. Centred frequency shift (CFS) method
(Quan& Harris 1997) and Peak frequency shift
method (PFS) (Zhang &Ulrych 2002). PFS method
satisfied low Q condition and far target wavelet
but dissatisfied high Q condition and near target
wavelet. Meanwhile, the CFS method gives high
accuracy in high Q condition but will not concur
for deeper targets.
The spectrum of Ricker wavelet can be expressed
by :
(1)
E
E
A
A
A
Q
A
=
0
t
0
A
A A
Figure 1. Time domain and frequency domain methods
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Where f
m
is a dominant frequency, f
p
the peak frequency and f is frequency content. After travelling
time, the Ricker wavelet will be:
(2)
H (f,t) is the absorption filter in which the frequency spectral is given by

Where the integral is evaluated along ray path l. And,
Where:
Quality factor and velocity
Q-factor is assumed to be independent of frequency. By considering a half space the amplitude
spectrum of the recorded signal is
(3)
Including all Q-factor unrelated functions into an amplitude term, the amplitude spectrum can be
written as (4)
Where M(t) is an amplitude factor independent of frequency and absorption. And the peak frequency
f
p
can be determined by equating the derivative of the spectrum, with respect to frequency, to zero:

(5)
Also for the Ricker wavelet:
. (6)
By inserting this expression into equation (5), the peak frequency at time t is :
... (7)
From here :

. (8)
We can notice that if the dominant frequency fm is known, the Q-factor can be computed from the
peak frequency at only one time location.
Generally, we do not know the initial f
m
. So, designating the peak frequencies at times t1 and t2 by
fp1 and fp2, respectively, we have

5


Thus,

(9)
Combining the equations (8) and (9) we obtain
(10)

This relation allows us to determine the absorption property of a layer if an event in the layer is
observed at two different time locations.
Two layer case characterised by Q
1
and Q
2

Consider first the case of two layers with quality factors Q1 and Q2 and travel times t1 and t2 in each
layer, respectively, using equation (4), the amplitude spectrum after t = t1 + t2 is:


If Q
1
and the dominant frequency fm of the source wavelet are known. The expression of Q2 is


With


Multi-layer case
For multi-layer media, we may write the amplitude attenuation equation (4) as:

...... (11)

Where Q
i
and t
i
are t he quality factor and the travel time in layer, respectively. Taking an approach
from velocity estimation, we assume straight ray paths and assume that quality factors and travel
times in layers above layer N are known. Now we can calculate quality factor Q
N
as

. (12)
Where,




6

The Q-factor values can now be calculated layer by layer by means of layer stripping. Since a straight
ray path approximation is used, the computed QN is not the actual interval quality factor. Analogous
toRMS velocities, we refer to such Q values as RMS Q values using a relation similar to Dix formula.


(13)


Where Qi is the average of the calculated Q values at different offsets for layer i, and t0(i) is the zero-
offset arrival time of reflection i when the raypath is assumed to be straight across interfaces.
Moreover, values of Qint are derived from RMS Q values, they are apparent values.

Application of the Analytical Formula to a Prestack and Poststack data
- Prestack

To estimate Q from CMP gathers, suppose that the arrival times for the main reflection events are
known. Then we calculate the Fourier transforms in a window for each offsets, then each amplitude
spectrum is fitted with ricker spectrum of 60 Hz and the peak frequency spectrum is estimated.
To calculate the Qs values layer by layer using peak frequency variation. Figure 2 shows a synthetic
CMP gather with two events.
The Q values in the two layers
are 10 and 20 respectively.
The desired and estimated Q
curves are shown in Figures 2b
and 2c respectively. The two
curves are almost the same,
because the estimated Q
values are close to the actual
values. The corresponding
dominant frequency is
estimated as 60.67 Hz. The
agreement between the
corresponding values shows
that the method works well
for ideal synthetic data.






The variation of peak frequencies with offset is shown in Figure 3. Peak frequency variation with
offset of the first event is shown in black and the variation of the second event is shown in red.
Figure 2: (a) A synthetic CMP gather (b) Values of input quality
factors. (c) Computed quality factors.
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Figure 3: Variation of peak frequency of the two reflections

- The effect of Q-factor compensation in term of resolution
an exemple showing the effect of inverse Q-filtering on a prestack CMP gather using obtained
Q-factor values is illustrated in Figure 4. The two above events are clearly separated after apllication
the inverse Q-filtering (c).

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Figure 4: The effect of inverse Q-filtering.


- Poststack
To apply the analytical formula to poststack data, we should assume each trace in a stacked section is
zero offset.

Figure 4(a) shows a real stacked seismic trace, (b) shows a windowedtime-variant spectrum of this
trace in which the trend of the spectral variation is indicated. Picking the peak amplitude. The
calculted quality factor from each line segment for the main events are shown in (c).we use
windowed time-variant spectral analysis applied on a narrow window to the inputtrace and
calculates the conventional Fourier spectrum of the windoweddata. The window is then translated
and widened successively with timealong the trace and the Fourier transform is calculated for each
new position window.
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Figure 5: Q estimation from a real stacked data. (b) Windowed time-variant spectrum. (c) Inverse of estimated Q-factor

Figure 6 shows the effect of application Q compensation on the stacked seismic data.

Figure 6 (a) before Q compensation (b) after Q compensation



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Estimation Q-factor from VSP data
The spectral-ratio method is widely used to determine an attenuation or Q factor from zero-offset
VSP data. The calculation proceeds as follows: for two downholereceivers at depths Z1 and Z2,



(14)

f t e 2 = and A(z) the amplitude spectrum, v1 and v2 the average velocities for Z1 and Z1
respectively. Expressed in time, equation (14) becomes:
(15)
Where t1 and t2 are travel times at depths z1 and z2.
By taking the logarithm of equation (15) we obtain

(16)
Equation (16) is of the form Y = mX +C, where m =
Q
t
2
A
is the slowness. By using least square
technique we can estimate the Q-factor values.
- VSP data preparation
In this part, the data used for the Q calculation are the zero-offset downgoing wavefield traces. For
the Psource vertical-component data, after aligning the first arrival times, a median filter is used to
separate the downgoing wavefield from the total wavefield.For the S-source horizontal-component
data, the radial component traces are then flattened at the first breaktime (Figure 7), and the same
median filter is applied as for P-source data to extract thedowngoing shear wavefield (Figure 8).

Figure 7: P-source vertical S-source radial
( )
( )
(

=
Q
z
A
Q
z
A
z A
z A
1
1
01
2
2
02
1
2
2
exp .
2
exp .
v
e
v
e
(

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
1
1
2
2
01
02
2
exp
V
Z
V
Z
Q A
A e
( )
(

=
1 2
01
02 2
2
exp
) 1 (
) (
t t
Q A
A
z A
z A e
( )
( )
( ) e
e
.
2 2
ln ln
1 2
01
02
1
2
Q
t
t t
Q A
A
z A
z A A
= =
|
|
.
|

\
|

|
|
.
|

\
|
11


Figure 8: Aligned down going P wave field Aligned down going S wave field
We can observe in Figure 8 that the S-wave amplitude decays faster than the P-wave, and has less
high-frequency components.
- Q estimation
By using the spectral ratio method and set the surface as the reference level. The spectral ratio
between any trace and thesurface sweep is used to calculate a Qave instead of Qint. The benefit of
this approach is that thesurface sweep is relatively constant and designed to have a largely flat
spectrum across a givenband. Figure 9 displays the spectra of the defined surface sweep, a shallow
station (220m) and adeep station (1157m) for both P-wave and S-wave.

Figure 9: the amplitude spectrums: P-source S-source.
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Now, Qp_ave and Qs_ave curve for the whole interval are calculated and plotted against depth
(Figure 10). Its noted that Qp_ave and Qs_ave have different trends.


Figure 10: Average QP (blue) and average QS (red) curve.
- Qp and Vp/Vs
Generally, the Vp/Vs ration is commonly used as a lithology indicator. Figure 11 displays the interval
Qp derived from VSP , Vp from sonic log and Vs/Vp fromVSP. Generally, the three curves are
following the similar trend and tracking each other. QPshows a linear inverse proportional relation
with Vp/Vs : higher Vp/Vs correspondsto lower Qp (more attenuation) and vice versa. Its more
obvious in the crossplot of Qp with Vpand Vs, respectively, and the crossplot of Qp with Vp/Vs which
gives us Qp = -40.3924(Vp/Vs) +144.1752 by linear regression (Figure 12).

Figure 11: Qp, Vp, Vp/Vs curves

Figure 12: Cross plot of Qp with Vp and Vs
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CONCLUSION
The subsurface lithology is characterized by its speed, density and quality factor. The latter has an
effect on the amplitude and the frequency content of the signal.
We have shown an analytical approach for estimating the quality factor of the surface data for
prestack and post stack data based on the assumption that the source wavelet has an amplitude
spectrum similar to that of a Ricker wavelet. Furthermore, to estimate Q-factor from a prestack CMP
gather, variation of a wavelet spectrum of an event is analyzed along offset. To obtain spectral peak
frequency variation from a post stack trace, we can use windowed time-variant spectral analysis.
We have used the spectral ratio method to calculate Q values from VSP data. A reliable continuous
interval Qp curve from about 450m to 1050m has been derived from a zero-offset VSP by this
approach.
The Qp curve derived from VSP shows an inverse linear relationship with the Vp/Vs curve. Finally,
the bulk value of Qp, Vp/Vs and Vp are estimated for the reservoir formations.

References
- Changjun Zhang 2008, Seismic Absorption Estimation and Compensation.
- Changjun Zhang and Tadeusz J. Ulrychz, Estimation of quality factors from CMP records,
GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 67, NO. 5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2002)
- Mohammad Bigdeli Tabar, Shoorangiz Shams Shamsabad Farahani, Mehdi Nikzad,
HossainTourang, Mehdi Ghasemi Naraghi, A Study of Relations between Velocity Ratio and
Seismic Quality Factors Ratio, Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research
- Chuandong (Richard) Xu*, Robert Stewart, Seismic Attenuation (Q) Estimation from VSP Data
- Zhang, C. Ulrych, T.J., 2002. Estimation of Q from CMP records. Geophysics 67, 1542-1547.

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