Improved imaging of gas hydrate reservoirs and their plumbing system using 2D elastic full-waveform inversion

Gas hydrates are ice-like crystalline materials that form under submarine environments of moderate pressure and low temperature. Another key factor to their formation is the abundance in gas supply from depth in addition to local biogenic gas. Detailed imaging and velocity analysis of the plumbing system of gas hydrates can provide confidence that amplitude anomalies in seismic data are related to gas hydrate accumulations. We have conducted 2D elastic full-waveform inversion (FWI) along a 14 km long segment of a 2D multichannel seismic profile to obtain a high-resolution velocity model of a hydrate system on the southern Hikurangi margin. We compare the FWI velocity model to previously published semblance- and tomography-based velocity models from the same data to explore how much more can be gained from the FWI. The FWI yielded a structurally more accurate velocity model that better delineated the low-velocity zone associated with free gas beneath the bottom simulating reflector (BSR) compared to the semblance- and tomography-based velocity models. Our results also find a lateral velocity inversion, that is, a narrow low-velocity zone surrounded by bands of higher velocities at a seaward-verging protothrust fault, which the two other methodologies failed to resolve. The FWI provides an improved lateral resolution making it an important tool when imaging the “plumbing” systems of gas hydrate reservoirs. In the southeastern limb of the anticline, our results find that the closely spaced landward-vergent protothrusts provide gas-charged fluids for hydrate formation above the BSR. Moreover, at the center of the anticline, our results find that a seaward-vergent protothrust fault appears to be acting as a conduit for gas-rich fluids into strata, although there is no accumulation of any significant hydrate above the BSR at the apex of the anticline. Our finding emphasizes the significance of densely spaced faults and fractures for providing gas for hydrate formation in the hydrate stability zone