What is it about?
Expanded Abstract version of presentation at the annual Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) Convention in New Orleans, 2006. Hitherto, the Vp/Vs ratio had been narrowly defined and applied. The ratio now belongs in a family of other linear relationships involving Vp, Vs and porosity at different levels of effective stress. Their combined applications in reservoir characterization are expanded, while the use of the Vp/Vs ratio itself is constrained. For example, it is a poor indicator of lithology and not related with porosity .
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Why is it important?
There was a time the Vp/Vs ratio was a "cure all" and "bread and butter" interpretation tool. This publication and prior sister publication (World Oil, 1988) - The Vp/Vs ratio revisited: Pitfalls and new interpretation techniques - tempered all that and presented a systematic development of related linear equations and expanded applications for reservoir characterization and future research.
Perspectives
These two papers are breakthrough publications because they show why the traditional use of the Vp/Vs ratio to predict lithology and porosity was not working. The ratio is linearly related with Vp, hence the frustrating overlaps when used to predict lithology, and obvious misapplication when used to predict porosity.
KILLIAN IKWUAKOR
PEER Research Ltd.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Vp/Vs ratio after 40 years: Uses and abuses, January 2006, Society of Exploration Geophysicists,
DOI: 10.1190/1.2369730.
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