Seismic anisotropy analysis at the Low-Noise Underground Laboratory (LSBB) of Rustrel (France),

J. Beres (1) , H. Zeyen (1) , G. Sénéchal (2) , Dominique Rousset (2) , Stéphane Gaffet (3)

1 GEOPS - Géosciences Paris Sud
2 IPRA - Institut Pluridisciplinaire de Recherche Appliquée en génie pétrolier
3 GEOAZUR 6526 - Géoazur

Seismic anisotropy of a fractured karstic limestone massif in sub-parallel underground galleries is studied. As the fractures are mostly vertically oriented, the seismic properties of the massif are approximated by horizontal transverse isotropy (HTI). Several data inversion methods were applied to a seismic dataset of arrival-times of P and S-waves. The applied methods include: isotropic tomography, simple cosine function fit, homogeneous Monte-Carlo anisotropic inversion for the parameters of horizontal transverse isotropy and anisotropic tomography for tilted transversely isotropic bodies. All methods lead to the conclusion that there is indeed an anisotropy present in the rock massif and confirm the direction of maximum velocity parallel to the direction of fracturing. Strong anisotropy of about 15% is found in the studied area. Repeated measurements show variations of the P-wave parameters, but not of the S-wave parameters, which is reflecting a change in water saturation.

Domaines: Sciences de la Terre

J. Beres, H. Zeyen, G. Sénéchal, Dominique Rousset, Stéphane Gaffet. Seismic anisotropy analysis at the Low-Noise Underground Laboratory (LSBB) of Rustrel (France),. Journal of Applied Geophysics, 2013, 94, pp.59-71. ⟨10.1016/j.jappgeo.2013.04.008⟩. ⟨hal-00830200⟩