Joint PP- and PS-wave amplitude variation with angle inversion for thin interbeds

Abstract

Since transmission losses, internal multiples, and mode conversions are not considered, conventional inversion methods based on the Zoeppritz equations and related approximations have limited capability in high-resolution inversion of thin interbeds. Reflectivity methods, which account for these wave propagation effects, are more suitable for inverting thin interbeds; however, most related studies approximate thin interbeds as several isotropic thin beds, which are inadequate for complex thin interbeds containing thin vertical transverse isotropy (VTI) beds. In this study, thin VTI beds with the characteristics of short-term cycles are regarded as the fundamental compositional units of thin interbeds. We propose a joint PP- and PS-wave amplitude variation with angle inversion method for thin interbeds containing thin VTI beds. The method uses second-order approximations to the Kennett equations for thin interbeds containing thin VTI beds as the forward operator. The inversion objective function is established using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, incorporating sparse constraints to improve the stability and resolution of the five-parameter inversion. Inversion results from model tests and field data demonstrate that the proposed method more accurately extracts elastic parameters and anisotropic information from thin interbeds compared to conventional methods based on the exact Zoeppritz equations, effectively improving inversion accuracy and offering a technical advancement for fine prestack inversion of complex thinly interbedded reservoirs.

Keywords

Amplitude variation with angle inversion / Reflectivity method / Sparse constraint / Thin interbeds / Vertical transverse isotropy

Acknowledgments

None.

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Deep Earth Probe and Mineral Resources Exploration-National Science and Technology Major Project (grant no. 2024ZD1003000), in part by the Scientific Research Innovation Capability Support Project for Young Faculty (grant no. ZYGXQNJSKYCXNLZCXM-E14), and in part by the CNPC Science and Technology Management Department Key Core Technology Research Project titled “Key Technologies and Software Development for 3D VSP-Surface Joint Imaging” (grant no. 2025ZG53).

Conflict of interest

Jun Lu serves as the Guest Editor of this Special Issue, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Other authors declare they have no competing interests.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Jun Lu

Formal analysis: Peidong Huang, Jun Lu

Funding acquisition: Zhe Yang, Wei Yang

Investigation: Peidong Huang, Jun Lu, Chun Yang

Methodology: Peidong Huang, Jun Lu

Visualization: Peidong Huang

Writing-original draft: Peidong Huang

Writing-review & editing: Jun Lu, Chun Yang

Availability of data

Data are available upon request via [e-mail].

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