What is it about?
Tight gas-bearing sandstone, an important unconventional hydrocarbon resource, presents significant challenges for seismic exploration due to its many elastic properties that make it difficult to distinguish from the background formations. We have discovered that the matrix shear modulus of tight gas-bearing sandstone can exhibit high-value characteristics in the background, allowing for effective identification of these reservoirs. Consequently, we proposed a new pre-stack seismic inversion method to obtain the matrix shear modulus of tight gas-bearing sandstone reservoirs, successfully characterizing their spatial distribution.
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Why is it important?
Tight gas-bearing sandstones are very similar to mudstones, making direct inversion of their lithology and fluid content extremely challenging. Pure sandstones, however, exhibit higher shear moduli, which serves as a sensitive parameter for distinguishing them from mudstones and also indicates reservoir spaces with better gas-bearing potential. By employing a new modulus-based AVA approximation formula combined with a Bayesian inversion method, the problem of tight gas-bearing sandstone characterization in the study area has been effectively addressed.
Perspectives
Direct prediction of tight gas-bearing sandstones is rather difficult, but converting the problem into predicting relatively pure sandstones makes it more feasible, with the shear modulus serving as a key indicator. Only sufficiently pure sandstones can provide the space for the development of gas-bearing reservoirs, and high shear moduli point to these locations. By adopting this conceptual shift, tight gas-bearing sandstones can be predicted more effectively.
Dr. Zhiguo Fu
Southwest Petroleum University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Tight gas-bearing sandstone inversion using matrix modulus amplitude-variation-with-angle approximation, Geophysics, May 2025, Society of Exploration Geophysicists,
DOI: 10.1190/geo2024-0553.1.
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