Virtual Refraction Tomography: Application to Realistic 3D Model

Refracted waves propagate along high-velocity layers and are highly sensitive to the changes within the layers of propagation. This property of refractions can be used for time-lapse monitoring, especially when the reservoir or its underlying layer is a high velocity zone (Hansteen, et al., 2010), e.g., carbonate formation. Application of the virtual source method (VSM) to refractions become useful when the overburden is complex and forms an obstacle for seismic imaging and monitoring. When VSM is applied to refracted arrivals, we generate a spurious event known as a virtual refraction (VR). Here we apply the concept of VR to a complex 3D synthetic dataset inspired by a typical field in the Middle East to show that the spurious arrival may be used to build time-lapse tomography images of reservoir anomaly zones.