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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L08304, doi:10.1029/2004GL022152, 2005

A framework for inferring field-scale rock physics relationships through numerical simulation

Stephen Moysey

Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA


Kamini Singha

Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA


Rosemary Knight

Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA


Abstract

Rock physics attempts to relate the geophysical response of a rock to geologic properties of interest, such as porosity, lithology, and fluid content. The geophysical properties estimated by field-scale surveys, however, are impacted by additional factors, such as complex averaging of heterogeneity at the scale of the survey and artifacts introduced through data inversion, that are not addressed by traditional approaches to rock physics. We account for these field-scale factors by creating numerical analogs to geophysical surveys via Monte Carlo simulation. The analogs are used to develop field-scale rock physics relationships that are appropriate for transforming the geophysical properties estimated from a survey into geologic properties. We demonstrate the technique using a synthetic example where radar tomography is used to estimate water content.

Received 2 December 2004; accepted 14 March 2005; published 19 April 2005.

Index Terms: 1835 Hydrology: Hydrogeophysics; 5199 Physical Properties of Rocks: General or miscellaneous; 3225 Mathematical Geophysics: Numerical approximations and analysis (4260).

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Citation: Moysey, S., K. Singha, and R. Knight (2005), A framework for inferring field-scale rock physics relationships through numerical simulation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L08304, doi:10.1029/2004GL022152.