An approach for quasi-continuous time-lapse seismic monitoring with sparse data

An approach for quasi-continuous, geophysical time-lapse monitoring with sparse seismic data is proposed. This approach takes advantage of the small changes in the seismic property of a geological reservoir that are expected to occur in a small time interval. The goal of this approach is to obtain high temporal and spatial resolution in reconstructed, time-lapse geophysical images using comparable resources that would have provided high spatial but low temporal resolution images with conventional approaches. This is done by acquiring spatially sparse data at small time intervals. In this case, a spatially sparse dataset refers to that dataset which is a small fraction (as little as 5%) of what would be acquired to reconstruct a high spatial resolution tomographic image of the subsurface. The high spatial resolution obtained by the proposed approach occurs because unrecorded data are predicted from future and past data. With high temporal and spatial resolution, early detection of important reservoir changes is more likely to occur.