5th Conference & Exposition on Petroleum Geophysics, Hyderabad-2004, India PP 479-480

AVO Current Practice and Pitfalls

Brian Russell
Hampson-Russell Software, A Division of Veritas DGC, Calgary, Alberta

ABSTRACT: Although the amplitude variations with offset, or AVO, method is almost twenty years old, it continues to evolve due to the high level of activity and interest in this area of seismic analysis. This survey paper will give a brief history of the AVO method, discuss current practices and trends, and finally consider pitfalls in the method.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AVO METHOD The development of the AVO method can be traced to a paper by Ostrander (1984) in which the author combined two ideas that until then had been unconnected. The first was the theory of seismic reflection amplitude change with angle, developed by Zoeppritz (1919), and the second was the theory of seismic velocity in porous, unconsolidated sands, developed by Gassmann (1951). Using a model dataset and a real dataset from the Sacramento valley, Ostrander was able to show that gas sands display strong amplitude variations with offset. Since the Zoeppritz equations do not lend themselves to easy interpretation, a linearized approximation of these equations by Aki and Richards (1980) lead to the well known AVO equation:

several inversion approaches have recently been developed and will be described in the next section. RECENTADVANCES Modifications to the Aki-Richards equation by Smith and Gidlow (1987) and Fatti et al. (1990) showed that the zero offset P-reflectivity (RP0) and S-reflectivity (RS0) could be extracted from the pre-stack gathers using a weighted stack approach. The P and S reflectivities can then be inverted to give P and S impedance. A combination of these impedances lead to a new method of seismic fluid-property discrimination, termed the lambda-mu-rho (LMR) method (Goodway et al., 1997). As shown by Russell et al. (2003), consideration of the Gassmann model for porous sandstones allows us show that the LMR method becomes a specific instance of the general theory for one particular value of dry rock Vp/Vs ratio. We will illustrate this fluid-property discrimination method with data examples taken from a shallow gas field in Alberta, as well as a discovery from the offshore east coast of Canada. An alternate approach to Rp and Rs inversion involves the concept of elastic impedance inversion, developed by Connolly (1999). This method will also be discussed, and will be compared to the previously discussed inversion methods. PITFALLS IN AVO Despite the great promise of AVO, and its success in many areas, there are also numerous pitfalls associated with the method. These pitfalls can be classified into three general areas: (1) Processing problems. (2) Anisotropy (3) The fizz-water effect Processing problems include incorrect amplitude corrections, failure to adequately remove noise, especially 479

R( ) = A + B sin 2 + C tan 2 sin 2

(1)

where A is the intercept, or linearized zero-offset reflection coefficient, and depends only on P-wave velocity and density, B is the AVO gradient, and depends on P-wave velocity, S-wave velocity and density, and C is the curvature term, depending only on the P-wave velocity. For angles less than thirty degrees, the third term can be dropped, and equation (1) can be used to extract an intercept and gradient term from the NMO corrected CMP gathers for each sample in a seismic volume. The intercept and gradient can then be crossplotted, and it can be shown that the background trend of shales and wet sands on the crossplot forms a roughly -45 degree line which is related to the mudrock trend proposed by Castagna et al. (1985). Fluid anomalies will plot away from this background trend. Rutherford and Williams (1989) introduced a classification scheme for AVO anomalies which, with some modifications, is still in use. These approaches will be illustrated with a shallow gas anomaly from Alberta. Although the intercept/gradient method just described is still the most popular approach to AVO analysis,

AVO Current Practice and Pitfalls

coherent noise, and failure to apply the correct moveout correction. As discussed by Tsvankin and Thomsen (1994), reflection moveout is nonhyperbolic in anisotropic media, and this is especially noticeable at long offsets. This is an important enough effect that it has been separated as the second important pitfall in AVO, as shown in the list above. To correct for this problem, a fourth order nonhyperbolic correction using Thomsens parameters (Thomsen, 1986) should be applied in order to correctly flatten primary events on the CDP gathers. Anitsotropy also affects the AVO amplitude response and this effect can be modeled using the Thomsen parameters. Finally, a major problem in AVO analysis is the fizzwater effect. The conventional interpretation of this problem is that small amounts of dissolved gas in the reservoir can create a large AVO effect. True gas saturation is therefore hard to estimate using AVO. As shown by Han and Batzle (2002), the effect is actually much more complex and an understanding of this problem requires a detailed knowledge of gas distribution within the reservoir, reservoir depth and pressure, and many other factors. CONCLUSION AVO has been an active area of seismic research in the industry for almost twenty years. The AVO method gives us the ability to delineate fluid anomalies within reservoir rocks, and has been used with great success in many areas. However, the method is also dependent on the quality of the seismic acquisition and processing, and requires a skilled analyst to correctly interpret the results.

REFERENCES
Aki, K., and Richards, P.G., 1980, Quantitative seismology: Theory and methods: W.H. Freeman and Co. Han, D- H. and Batzle, M., 2002, Fizz water and low gas-saturated reservoirs: THE LEADING EDGE, 21, no. 4, 395-398. Castagna, J.P., Batzle, M.L., and Eastwood, R.L., 1985, Relationship between compressional and shear-wave velocities in clastic silicate rocks: Geophysics, 50, 551570. Connolly, P., 1999, Elastic impedance: THE LEADING EDGE, 18, no. 4, 438-452. Gassmann, F., 1951, Elastic waves through a packing of spheres: Geophysics, 16, 673-685. Goodway, B., Chen, T. and Downton, J., 1997, Improved AVO fluid detection and lithology discrimination using Lam petrophysical parameters: Annual Meeting Abstracts, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 183-186. Ostrander, W.J., 1984, Plane-wave reflection coefficients for gas sands at nonnormal angles of incidence: Geophysics, 49, 1637-1648. Russell, B., Hedlin, K., Hilterman, F. and Lines, L. R., 2003, Fluidproperty discrimination with AVO: A Biot-Gassmann perspective: G E O P H Y S I C S , Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 68, 29-39. Rutherford, S.R., and Williams, R.H., 1989, Amplitude-versus-offset variations in gas sands: Geophysics, 54, 680-688. Thomsen, L., 1986, Weak elastic anisotropy : GEOPHYSICS, Soc. of Expl. Geophys., 51, 1954-1966. Tsvankin, I. and Thomsen, L., 1994, Nonhyperbolic reflection moveout in anisotropic media: GEOPHYSICS, Soc. of Expl. Geophys., 59, 1290-1304. Zoeppritz, K., 1919, Erdbebenwellen VIIIB, On the reflection and propagation of seismic waves: Gottinger Nachrichten, I, 66-84.

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