E041

ESTIMATING STATISTICAL PARAMETERS FROM TUNNEL SEISMIC DATA

A. KAS LILAR 1,3 , Y.A. KRAVTSOV 2 , S.A. SHAPIRO 3 , S. BUSKE 3 , R. GIESE 4 and TH. DICKMANN 5 1 Department of Applied Mathematics, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft , The Netherlands. 2 Maritime University, Poland. 3 Freie Universitaet, Germany. 4 GFZ Potsdam, Germany. 5 Amberg Measuring Technique (AMT), Switzerland.

Summary Estimation of the seismic velocity eld by deterministic methods resolves large scale structures of the medium. When the medium becomes inhomogeneous, the use of statistical methods can help to resolve the small scale variations of the velocity eld. In this study, the travel time uctuations of rst-arrival P waves are studied in the framework of geometrical optics for estimating the statistical parameters of the medium in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, Multifunctional Station (MFS) Faido, Switzerland. In particular, the standard deviation of velocity uctuations and the inhomogeneity scale length in the horizontal direction are estimated. Introduction Information on statistical properties of inhomogeneities in the elastic medium can be necessary for estimating uncertainties of seismic images. This is especially important for inhomogeneities of a size at the limit of the seismic resolution. Statistical properties of heterogeneities can be used in seismic inversion, combined with geostatistical approaches. Moreover, statistics of heterogeneities might serve as a new seismic attribute useful for building a bridge between seismic and lithological rocks classication. Statistical inverse problems in reection seismics were studied by Touati (1999), Iooss et al. (2000) and Gaerets et al. (2001). Detailed analysis of traveltime statistics of reected waves was performed by Kravtsov et al. (2003a). Kravtsov et al. (2003b) extracted statistical parameters from refracted waves and veried theoretical results by numerical calculations. In the study here, a real data application of the method is carried out by using tunnel seismic data. It is seen that some limitations arise in the application of the method. By applying the method, the standard deviation of the medium uctuations and the inhomogeneity scale length in horizontal direction are estimated. Method for estimating statistical parameters The traveltime uctuations of refracted waves are studied in the framework of geometrical optics. The properties of the inhomogeneous elastic medium are characterized by the refractive index n(r ) which is related to the wave velocity as n(r ) = V 0 /V (r ). V0 is the velocity near the earths surface and V (r ) is the velocity at position r . For the analysis of the travel time uctuations, the following relation between the travel time and the optical path (r ) is used (Kravtsov et.al., 2003b): t= 1 (r) = v0 v0 n[r(s)]ds, (1)

where r (s) is the ray trajectory and s is the arclength. A smoothly inhomogeneous random elastic medium is assumed and only rst-order perturbations are considered. In a smoothly inhomogeneous random elastic medium the refractive index n can be represented as (r ), part: the sum of an average (regular), n(r ), and a random, n (r). n( r ) = n( r ) + n
EAGE 66th Conference & Technical Exhibition Paris, France, 7 - 10 June 2004

(2)

Travel time, velocity and other parameters of interest can also be represented in the form of Eq.(2). In the framework of the rst-order perturbation theory the value v = v v is connected with n by the linear relation v2 n v = . (3) v0 Correspondingly, the travel time uctuations are represented by = = 1 t v0 v0 n ds, (4)

which deals with integration of uctuations n along an unperturbed ray. We consider a regular ray trajectory in a plane-layered medium with refractive index n and a constant velocity gradient depending on the vertical coordinate z . We suppose that velocity uctuations v are proportional to average velocity v (z ): v (z ) = v (z ), (5)

2. where is a statistically homogeneous random eld with a Gaussian correlation function and variance The variance of the traveltime uctuations is represented by 2 t (, ) = DJ (, ),

(6)

where D= and J (, ) = B 2
/2 /2

2H lz 2 v0

(7)

d (B 2 2 )3/2 2 (B 2 2 ) + 2

(8)

The value ( = X/H ) represents the dimensionless distance, where X is the end point of the ray and H is the ratio of the near-surface velocity, V 0 , to the velocity gradient, k ; H = V0 /k . The B parameter is dened as B ( ) = 1 + (/2)2 . The ratio of the inhomogeneity scale length in the vertical direction lz to the inhomogeneity scale length in horizontal direction l x is represented by = lz /lx . The integral calculated numerically for = 0.1, 1, 10 is presented in Fig.1. In the case of large offsets ( 1) the 2 l and = l /l can be extracted by using non-linear tting between statistical parameters of the medium z z x the relation given in Eq.(6) and experimental data. By using the travel time covariance function which is expressed in Kravtsov et al. (2003b) the inhomogeneity scale length l x can be estimated. Estimation of lx ensures to estimate lz and . For the application of the method considered here, a sufcient number of medium realisations and large offsets are necessary. The numerical simulations for large offsets can be found in Kravtsov et al. (2003b). If the offset ( ) of the experimental data is not much larger than unity and there are not enough medium realisations, it is seen that some limitations arise in the application of the method. In the case of small offsets ( 1), Eq. (8) can be approximated as J (, ) / and the non-linear 2 , , and given by Eq.(6) becomes relation between t
2 t (, )

2H lz
2 v0

2H lx
2 v0

(9)

2 l and separately and only the quantity of 2 / = 2 l can be Then it is not possible to estimate z x 2 l and . For estimating l , the zero cross intervals of the rst derivative of the travel extracted instead of z x time uctuations are used. The lx value is estimated by averaging these intervals.

Figure 1: J (, ) versus calculated numerically for = 0.1, 1, 10.

Application to the Tunnel Seismic Data The theory is applied to the observed travel times of Multifunctional Station Faido of the Gotthard Base Tunnel (Switzerland). The geology of the area consists of a Penninic Gneiss Zone of the Switzerland Alps. The seismic measurements were carried out by GFZ Potsdam and Amberg Measuring Technique, Zurich. The shots were recorded with three component geophone anchor rods which were placed in 2m deep boreholes. The shot and receiver group intervals were 1m and 10m, respectively. By using the results of the tomography from Giese et al. (2002), the region where strong velocity variations are estimated were used for the application of the method. For the selected region the considered numbers of shots and receivers are 146 and 10, respectively. Although the real geometry has sparse sampling, the data were processed by using reciprocity. Each shot-receiver group is considered as a medium realization. The theoretical travel time curve for refracted waves are tted to the observed traveltimes for each shotreceiver group for estimating the velocity at the near-surface, V 0 , and the velocity gradient, k of the medium (Fig. 2a). The travel time uctuations are calculated by taking the difference between the theoretical and observed travel times (Fig 2b). The average near-surface velocity and the average velocity gradient were estimated as V0 = 5403m/s and k = 27.74s1 respectively, which gives H = V0 /k 195m. The maximum offset used in this study were 150m, the value was calculated as = X/H = 0.769. 2 l , the variance of the travel time uctuations are calculated by using the following equation To estimate x
2 t

2 >= 1 =< t N

i (x) t
i=1

(10)

2 l is estimated as 0.026m, (Fig.3). By using a linear tting procedure between Eq. (9) and real data, x By using the rst derivative of the average travel time uctuations, the average of the zero cross intervals are calculated to estimate the horizontal inhomogeneity scale length l x . The estimated result is found as 2 l , is estimated as 4.5%. lx = 13m. By using the estimated lx value in x

0.06
0.0008

0.04 t(s) 0.02 0 - 300 t(s) 0 - 0.0006

- 200 (a)

- 100 X(m)

50

0.2

0.4 g
(b)

0.6

0.8

Figure 2: (a) Observed traveltimes (solid line) tted to the theoretical traveltimes (dashed line) of refracted waves.
(b) Traveltime uctuations calculated by taking the difference between the observed and theoretical traveltimes.

EAGE 66th Conference & Technical Exhibition Paris, France, 7 - 10 June 2004

7 X 10- 7 st2(s2) 5 X 10- 7 3 X 10- 7 1 X 10- 7 0 0 0.2 0.4 g 0.6 0.8

Figure 3: The variance of the average traveltime uctuations (thin line) and the tted line (thick line) to this data. Conclusions In this study the statistical parameters; standard deviation of the uctuations and the inhomogeneity scale length in horizontal direction are estimated as = 4.5%, lx = 13m respectively. The average near-surface velocity of the medium is estimated as V 0 = 5403m/s which is in agreement with the tomography results of Giese et al. (2002). Considering the dominant frequency for P waves (800Hz.), the corresponding wavelength is 6.75m. The estimated inhomogeneity scale length is nearly twice of the wavelength, which allows to connect the uctuations to medium variations. As a further study, the estimated statistical parameters will be used in the tomographic inversion of the seismic waveeld to improve the accuracy of the velocity eld estimation. Although there is no clear geologic evidence of the inhomogeneities in this order, the dimensions of objects like quartz and amphibolite lenses present in the area will be studied in more detail to compare the estimated results with the real geology. References Gaerets, D., Galli, A., Ruffo, P. and Della Rossa, E., 2001. Instantaneous velocity eld characterization through stacking velocity variography, 71th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 1-4. Giese, R., Klose, C., Otto, P., Selke, C. and Borm, G., 2002. Investigation of fault zones in the Penninic gneiss complex of the Swiss Central Alps using tomographic inversion of the seismic waveeld along tunnels, EGS XXVII General Assembly, Nice, France, 21-26 April. Iooss, B., Blanc-Benon, Ph. and Lhuillier, C., 2000. Statistical moments of travel times at second order in isotropic and anisotropic random media, Waves in Random Media, 10, 381-394. Kravtsov, Y.A., M uller, T.M., Shapiro, S.A. and Buske, S., 2003a. Statistical properties of reection traveltimes in 3D randomly inhomogeneous and anisomeric media, Geophys. J. Int., 154, 841-851. Kravtsov, Y.A., Kas llar, A., Shapiro, S.A., Buske, S.and M uller, T., 2003b. Extracting statistical parameters of elastic medium from refraction traveltimes, submitted to Geophys. J. Int. Touati, M., Iooss, B. and Galli, A., 1999. Quantitative control of migration: A geostatistical approach, Mathematical Geology, 31, 277-295.