Acoustic monitoring of gas emissions from the seafloor. Part I: quantifying the volumetric flow of bubbles     

Isabelle Leblond  Carla Scalabrin  Laurent Berger 《Marine Geophysical Researches》2014,35(3):191-210

Three decades of continuous ocean exploration have led us to identify subsurface fluid related processes as a key phenomenon in marine earth science research. The number of seep areas located on the seafloor has been constantly increasing with the use of multi-scale imagery techniques. Due to recent advances in transducer technology and computer processing, multibeam echosounders are now commonly used to detect submarine gas seeps escaping from the seafloor into the water column. A growing number of en-route surveys shows that sites of gas emissions escaping from the seafloor are much more numerous than previously thought. Estimating the temporal variability of the gas flow rate and volumes escaping from the seafloor has thus become a challenge of relevant interest which could be addressed by sea-floor continuous acoustic monitoring. Here, we investigate the feasibility of estimating the volumetric flow rates of gas emissions from horizontal backscattered acoustic signals. Different models based on the acoustic backscattering theory of bubbles are presented. The forward volume backscattering strength and the inversion volumetric flow rate solutions were validated with acoustic measurements from artificial gas flow rates generated in controlled sea-water tank experiments. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to investigate the behavior of the 120-kHz forward solution with respect to model input parameters (horizontal distance between transducer and bubble stream, bubble size distribution and ascent rate). The most sensitive parameter was found to be the distance of the bubble stream which can affect the volume backscattering strength by 20 dB within the horizontal range of 0–200 m. Results were used to derive the detection probability of a bubble stream for a given volume backscattering strength threshold according to different bubble flow rates and horizontal distance.  相似文献   

Acoustic monitoring of gas emissions from the seafloor. Part II: a case study from the Sea of Marmara     

Gaye Bayrakci  Carla Scalabrin  Stéphanie Dupré  Isabelle Leblond  Jean-Baptiste Tary  Nadine Lanteri  Jean-Marie Augustin  Laurent Berger  Estelle Cros  André Ogor  Christos Tsabaris  Marc Lescanne  Louis Géli 《Marine Geophysical Researches》2014,35(3):211-229

A rotating, acoustic gas bubble detector, BOB (Bubble OBservatory) module was deployed during two surveys, conducted in 2009 and 2011 respectively, to study the temporal variations of gas emissions from the Marmara seafloor, along the North Anatolian Fault zone. The echosounder mounted on the instrument insonifies an angular sector of 7° during a given duration (of about 1 h). Then it rotates to the next, near-by angular sector and so forth. When the full angular domain is insonified, the “pan and tilt system” rotates back to its initial position, in order to start a new cycle (of about 1 day). The acoustic data reveal that gas emission is not a steady process, with observed temporal variations ranging between a few minutes and 24 h (from one cycle to the other). Echo-integration and inversion performed on the acoustic data as described in the companion paper of Leblond et al. (Mar Geophys Res, 2014), also indicate important variations in, respectively, the target strength and the volumetric flow rates of individual sources. However, the observed temporal variations may not be related to the properties of the gas source only, but reflect possible variations in sea-bottom currents, which could deviate the bubble train towards the neighboring sector. During the 2011 survey, a 4-component ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) was co-located at the seafloor, 59 m away from the BOB module. The acoustic data from our rotating, monitoring system support, but do not provide undisputable evidence to confirm, the hypothesis formulated by Tary et al. (2012), that the short-duration, non-seismic micro-events recorded by the OBS are likely produced by gas-related processes within the near seabed sediments. Hence, the use of a multibeam echosounder, or of several split beam echosounders should be preferred to rotating systems, for future experiments.  相似文献   

Preliminary report on a dinosaur tracksite from Lower Cretaceous strata in Mount Lebanon     

Raymond Gèze  Isabelle Veltz  Jean-Claude Paicheler  Bruno Granier  Roland Habchi  Dany Azar  Sibelle Maksoud 《Arabian Journal of Geosciences》2016,9(19):730

A dinosaur tracksite was discovered in Batha on the side of the road from Harissa to Ghosta (Keserwan, Lebanon). About ten trackways are exposed at the top of two beds of Lower Cretaceous limestones over an area of approximately 1000 m². These footprints were probably made by at least two dinosaur species, Sauropoda and either Theropoda or Ornithopoda. The site, which is the first record from Lebanon, should be protected to allow further scientific investigations.  相似文献   

Local and controlled prestack depth migration in complex areas     

Isabelle Lecomte 《Geophysical Prospecting》1999,47(6):799-818

Prestack depth migrations based on wavefield extrapolation may be computationally expensive, especially in 3D. They are also very dependent on the acquisition geometry and are not flexible regarding the geometry of the imaging zone. Moreover, they do not deal with all types of wave, considering only primary reflection events through the model. Integral approaches using precalculated Green's functions, such as Kirchhoff migration and Born-based imaging, may overcome these problems. In the present paper, both finite-difference traveltimes and wavefront construction are used to obtain asymptotic Green's functions, and a generalized diffraction tomography is applied as an example of Born-based acoustic imaging. Target-orientated imaging is easy to perform, from any type of survey and subselection of shot/receiver pairs. Multifield imaging is possible using Green's functions that take into account, for instance, reflections at model boundaries. This may help to recover parts of complex structures which would be missing using a paraxial wave equation approach. Finally, a numerical evaluation of the resolution, or point-spread, function at any point of the depth-migrated section provides valuable information, either at the survey planning stage or for the interpretation.  相似文献   

Integrating facies-based Bayesian inversion and supervised machine learning for petro-facies characterization in the Snadd Formation of the Goliat Field,south-western Barents Sea     

Honoré Yenwongfai  Nazmul Haque Mondol  Isabelle Lecomte  Jan Inge Faleide  Johan Leutscher 《Geophysical Prospecting》2019,67(4):1020-1039

Seismic petro-facies characterization in low net-to-gross reservoirs with poor reservoir properties such as the Snadd Formation in the Goliat field requires a multidisciplinary approach. This is especially important when the elastic properties of the desired petro-facies significantly overlap. Pore fluid corrected endmember sand and shale depth trends have been used to generate stochastic forward models for different lithology and fluid combinations in order to assess the degree of separation of different petro-facies. Subsequently, a spectral decomposition and blending of selected frequency volumes reveal some seismic fluvial geomorphological features. We then jointly inverted for impedance and facies within a Bayesian framework using facies-dependent rock physics depth trends as input. The results from the inversion are then integrated into a supervised machine learning neural network for effective porosity discrimination. Probability density functions derived from stochastic forward modelling of endmember depth trends show a decreasing seismic fluid discrimination with depth. Spectral decomposition and blending of selected frequencies reveal a dominant NNE trend compared to the regional SE–NW pro-gradational trend, and a local E–W trend potentially related to fault activity at branches of the Troms-Finnmark Fault Complex. The facies-based inversion captures the main reservoir facies within the limits of the seismic bandwidth. Meanwhile the effective porosity predictions from the multilayer feed forward neural network are consistent with the inverted facies model, and can be used to qualitatively highlight the cleanest regions within the inverted facies model. A combination of facies-based inversion and neural network improves the seismic reservoir delineation of the Snadd Formation in the Goliat Field.  相似文献