Based on the empirical Gardner equation describing the relationship between density and compressional wave velocity, the converted wave reflection coefficient extrema attributes for AVO analysis are proposed and the relations between the extrema position and amplitude, average velocity ratio across the interface, and shear wave reflection coefficient are derived. The extrema position is a monotonically decreasing function of average velocity ratio, and the extrema amplitude is a function of average velocity ratio and shear wave reflection coefficient. For theoretical models, the average velocity ratio and shear wave reflection coefficient are inverted from the extrema position and amplitude obtained from fitting a power function to converted wave AVO curves. Shear wave reflection coefficient sections have clearer physical meaning than conventional converted wave stacked sections and establish the theoretical foundation for geological structural interpretation and event correlation. "The method of inverting average velocity ratio and shear wave reflection coefficient from the extrema position and amplitude obtained from fitting a power function is applied to real CCP gathers. The inverted average velocity ratios are consistent with those computed from compressional and shear wave well logs.
Seismic attenuation has been inherent media characteristics in which an interesting topic of research, for it reflects the seismic waves propagate. There are many factors that cause seismic wave attenuation, such as geometry attenuation caused by energy dissipating during propagation, friction attenuation by relative sliding among rock grains, and scattering attenuation by rock heterogeneity. In this paper we study P-wave scattering attenuation in a random elastic medium by numerical simulations from a statistical point of view. A random elastic medium model is built based on general stochastic process theory. Then a staggered-grid pseudo-spectral method is used to simulate wave propagation. Scattering attenuation is estimated by the spectral ratio method based on virtual detector records. Random elastic media numerical scatter results with various heterogeneity levels show that the higher heterogeneous levels cause greater scattering attenuation. When the scatter sizes are smaller than a wave length, the larger scatters give a greater attenuation. Finally, we propose a method to evaluate fluid-flow attenuation in porous media. The fluid- flow attenuation is derived from total attenuation and scattering attenuation in random porous media and the attenuation is estimated quantitatively. Results show that in the real seismic frequency range when the heterogeneous scale is about 10^1 meters (less than one wave length), scattering attenuation is larger than fluid-tlow attenuation in random porous media and scattering attenuation is the main factor of seismic attenuation in real heterogeneous porous media.