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BILL GOODWAY and MARCO PEREZ, Apache
JOHN VARSEK, Cenovus
CHRISTIAN ABACO, EnCana
December 2010
This empirical trend is easier to understand in terms of rigidity than as a combination of Youngs modulus and Poissons
ratio, because an increase in rigidity enables a shale to sustain
natural or induced fractures.
Equating h and + to E and v in order to compare geomechanical properties on equivalent log crossplots is not so
simple, as E has a nonlinear relationship to h and +. However, a useful reference plot that relates E versus h to curves
of constant + and lines of constant v is shown in Figure 2.
Griggs empirical trend between v and E (shown as the Barnett Trend in Figure 2) can now be seen to have two parts.
One, representing brittle rocks, is perpendicular to increasing
curves of constant + and crosses lines of decreasing v; the
other trend bends toward the origin, and represents ductile
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rocks (e.g., coals) with very low + values (< 4 GPa) that approach a constant
Poissons ratio of 0.34. The Barnett
Shale ranges shown in Figure 1 (E =
45 MMpsi and v = 0.20.3) translate
to cutoff ranges of moderately high rigidity (+ = 1016 GPa) and h/+ ratios
between 0.78 and 1.08 as shown in
Figure 2.
The transformations above guide
the petrophysics and AVO used to interpret the results of prestack inversion
with the goal of identifying similar
gas shales in the context of a standard
LambdaRho (h) and MuRho (+)
crossplot template shown in Figure 3
(Goodway, 2009). This template compares various shale and carbonate lithologies from Western Canada to two
published Barnett Shale values whose Figure 3. LambdaRho versus MuRho crossplot comparing various shales and carbonates from
relative EURs (Simon, 2005) are indi- Western Canada to the Barnett Shale (with background pure mineral points and lines of
cated on the grid of mineral reference constant Poissons ratio and P-impedance).
points. The arrows on this template
also indicate the directions for lithology and increasing porosAll these effects have an unambiguous shift to low hl vality. Both Western Canadian (red and green) and the Barnett ues, making this the best attribute to map the most prospec(yellow) gas shales occupy a space away from ductile shales tive zones.
due to their higher quartz content which results in an increase
in rigidity mu (or MuRho) and decrease in Poissons ratio Minimum horizontal closure stress
that is consistent with Griggs relation. However, MuRho and A different geomechanical perspective, of engineering oriPoissons ratio alone do not clearly distinguish gas shales from gin, describes a rocks ability to support natural or induced
calcareous shales (light blue) that are barriers to hydrofrac fractures as being governed by the minimum horizontal clostimulation, as they share a similar narrow range of values.
sure stress shown in Equation 2. This stress is defined as the
Leon Thomsen, in his 2002 Distinguished Instructor minimum pressure required to open a pre-existing fracture
Short Course, discounted the incompressibility parameter, h. or plane of weakness and is a function of E and v, giving rise
He wrote, in the companion book to the course, that "h does to the emphasis on these properties for the Barnett Shale.
not have a common name, since it is not useful for much in
geophysics (despite what you might have heard!). However,
(2)
despite Thomsens claim, we feel that h, or better still hl,
merits consideration as the best discriminator of gas shales
The closure stress equation can be written in terms of the
from ductile shales, unfracable calcareous shales, and carbon- more practical seismic moduli h and + in a similar manner as
ates. This is clearly seen by the horizontal shift to low Lamb- used above to convert E and v:
daRho values with a near doubling in relative EUR for the
3
1
2
Barnett (yellow points 3053) in Figure 3. A similar decrease
in LambdaRho shown by the yellow arrow also separates the
(3)
red from green clusters of Western Canadian gas shales. This
can be explained as follows:
were = horizontal (minimum closure) stress, = overburden stress, yy = yy = maximum horizontal stress, exx, eyy =
1) A gas-filled porosity or microfracture effect similar to a strains in x and y, PP = pore pressure, BV and BH = vertical and
conventional reservoir sand where the product of lambda horizontal poro-elastic constants.
(incompressibility) and density (porosity and fluid) enIn Equation 3, the effective stress (box 2) and maximum
hances the hl response.
(box 3 within the square brackets)
horizontal stress =
2) A pore-pressure effect seen in logs with overpressured are rotated into the minimum horizontal stress direction
zones.
by the ratio h/(h + 2+) (also see Figure 4a). Now the most
3) A geomechanical reason due to a reduction in the mini- fracable zones occupying low h and midrange +p in the
mum closure stress (i.e., a mix of intrinsic brittleness and crossplots can be understood as also having the lowest closure
anisotropy that will be considered next).
stress. Unfortunately, as with all ratios including Poissons ra-
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tio, it is not clear whether the requisite low ratio is due to low
values in the numerator, high values in the denominator, or a
combination. However, the empirical observation from Figure 3 reveals that h in the numerator is the dominating factor
of the minimum closure stress. It is worth noting that, from
Griggs empirical relation shown in Figure 1, a higher Youngs
modulus suggests better fracture-prone zones in the Barnett;
but, in Equation 2, this would lead to a higher minimum
closure stress from an enhancement of the last tectonic term
in the equation.
Equation 2, for the minimum closure stress, is not obviously anisotropic. However, in its seismic formulation (Equation 3), the tectonic term (box 3) is clearly a function of
fractional horizontal elastic strain anisotropy due to tectonic
compression. Furthermore, the separate effects of h and +
on minimum closure stress can be understood from a simple
HTI anisotropy fracture model shown in Figure 4a. (HTI =
horizontal symmetry axis and transverse isotropy.) The model
is represented by four terms in h and +, both parallel (>) and
perpendicular () to the maximum horizontal stress direction . These four Lam terms are a logical extension of the
three-parameter ANNIE shale model introduced by Schoenberg and Sayers (1996) that is described by a single isotropic
h term and two + terms, +> (parallel) and + (perpendicular).
The model is captured in Figure 4b, where rigidity, +,
determines the rocks resistance to transverse shear failure or
fractional weakness T, while h is the rocks resistance to
fracture dilation that relates to pore pressure or normal fractional weakness N (Schoenberg and Sayers, 1995). These
concepts can be best described through the stiffness tensor
matrix relating stress to strain for a simple HTI model from
which the minimum closure stress equation is derived (Goodway et al., 2006).
Box 3 in Equation 3, derived from the last term in Equation 2, can be thought of as the tectonic confining stress expressed as the product of maximum horizontal shear stress
( ) and an anisotropic elastic strain energy or potential (e2yy
e2xx) / e2yy (Sayers, 2010). Figure 4a gives a physical sense
of this anisotropy, as being equivalent to the aspect ratio of a
fracture caused by accumulated horizontal tectonic shortening in a compressional geologic setting. While it is difficult to
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December 2010
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1995).
4) The zero-offset reflection has no
azimuth variation but is reduced for
gas-filled or dry fractures.
This lack of generality is unlike
the isotropic Rutherford and Williams
AVO gradient classification, indicating changes in VP/VS, and may explain
why conventional AVO is in more
common use.
Anisotropic AVO theory and models from Rgers equation
Inversion for anisotropy using P-waves
is based on conventional AVO follow- Figure 11. Models based on Rgers linearized three-term azimuthal AVO gradient equation.
ing Rgers reformulation of the Aki
and Richards equation for reflectivity
with incidence angle. This reformulation describes a simple model of vertically aligned fractures (HTI anisotropy) as shown in Figure 12. The HTI
model is identical to the more familiar transverse isotropy (VTI) model
for horizontal layers (e.g., shales), the
only difference being a 90 rotation
of the symmetry axis from vertical to
horizontal. Just as isotropic AVO is a
consequence of P-wave conversion to
12. Model of HTI media used in Rgers 1997 AVAZ P-wave reflection equation
vertically polarized Sv shear waves at Figure
showing anisotropic conversion to shear waves for principal and nonprincipal planes of
a reflecting boundary, so the azimuth- symmetry.
ally anisotropic equivalent converts to
a fast velocity Sv (S1) shear wave in the principal isotropic incidence angles. This is equivalent to the familiar VTI model
plane and a slow velocity Sv (S2) shear wave in the aniso- where the difference between vertical and horizontal P-wave
tropic symmetry axis plane (Figure 12). This polarization is propagation is described by Thomsens (epsilon) parameter.
termed shear-wave splitting and is defined as a percentage of By analogy P-wave propagation between the principal planes
shear-wave anisotropy by Thomsens a parameter (Equation for VTI and HTI is described by Thomsens b(delta) parameter for nonnormal incident angles at 45 to the symmetry
4).
The corresponding HTI to VTI Thomsen parameters can planes (Thomsen, 1986). However, for the HTI model, both
and b undergo a transformation to (v) and b(v), where (v)
be compared as follows:
denotes a vertical axis reference due to the 90 symmetry
axis rotation from their VTI equivalents as given by Equaand
HTI relationship to VTI:
tion 5. These rotated HTI parameters, (v) and b(v) along with
where
and = P-wave velocity,
-wave veloc- a, appear in Rgers AVAZ equation for AVO variation with
azimuth angles q between the principal symmetry axis and
ity and for completeness as used later in Equation 8
isotropy plane as shown in Equation 6.
(5)
following
where:
(Alkhalifah
(6)
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Vp (m/s)
Vs (m/s)
Rho (gm/cc)
Vp/Vs
avg. Vp/Vs
2462
1100
2.312
2.24
2.10
2760
1400
2.305
1.97
Table 1. Log data from Colorado gas shale case study area. Top layer
background Colorado shale (isotropic or VTI layer). High impedance
top Colorado B zone (HTI layer)
Figure 13. 3D displays for (a) three-term (Rger) versus (b) two-term
(Shuey) equations of azimuthal AVO curves from model values in
Table 1.
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(8)
where (from Equation 5)
and Tsvankin, 1995).
(Alkhalifah
1507
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1508
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