Earth Sciences Commons^™

Reservoir Estimation In The Penobscot 3d Seismic Volume Using Constrained Sparse Spike Inversion, Offshore Nova Scotia, Canada, Mengchu Xiao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Penobscot study area is located offshore Nova Scotia, Canada. There are two wells, which penetrate the highest potentially commercial bodies in the Abenaki Formation. In order to investigate the potential for locating additional hydrocarbon reservoirs, well log data was used and the Penobscot 3D seismic dataset was analyzed using Constrained Sparse Spike Inversion. From the well log data, low GR and SP values are an indication of a permeable sand layer, which provides the target zone in this study. Impedance – porosity crossplots gave the relationship between impedance and porosity, where a low impedance sand layer is correlated with …

Experimental Study Of The Flow Of Ferrofluid In A Porous Media Under A Magnetic Field, Muskaan Khurana

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This research presents results from a laboratory-scale experimental setup that was designed to visualize the behavior of ferrofluid percolation through a porous media. Ferrofluids are colloidal suspensions made of magnetic particles of a few nanometers and stabilized in carrier liquids like water or mineral oil. Ferrofluids get magnetized and align themselves in the direction of a magnetic field when a field gradient is applied.

With the help of this experiment we investigate the viability of controlling fluid flow in porous medium by a magnetic field in vicinity. The experiments show that ferrofluids can be used as a transporting media to …

Preliminary Seismic Coda Wave Attenuation Study Of Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala, Maximilian Guettinger

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Pacaya volcano is a basaltic complex in the Central American Volcanic Arc in Guatemala. Pacaya has been in an open vent condition since 1961. During January 2015 we deployed 19 short period seismometer stations on Pacaya at distances less than 1.5 kilometers from the summit. The resulting data consisted of tremor and thousands of discrete events associated with ongoing outgassing. Where possible, individual events were identified and located. They were found to be high in the edifice near the vent. We used the decaying codas of these events to model the attenuation structure of the Pacaya edifice, following the energy …

Nonlinear Inversion Strategies Applied To Source Characterization And 3d Earthquake Tomography In Volcanic Environments: A Case Study At Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala, Federica Lanza

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Full-waveform moment tensor inversion of volcanic seismic signals and travel-time 3D tomography of local earthquakes have been widely used to explore source processes related to magma transport as well as to image the location and size of magma storage systems. However, the inversion solutions and the associated reliability estimates are non-unique and bear intrinsic uncertainties due to simplifying assumptions about the source, inaccuracies in the velocity models, dependence on network configuration, and other a priori constraints imposed by the modeler.

This work addresses the non-uniqueness and uncertainties of the model results by introducing non-linear inversion techniques that allow sampling the …

Influence Of The Weathered Layer On Retrieving Body Wave Using Passive Siesmic Interferometry, Boming Wu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Passive seismic interferometry (SI) is an increasingly popular seismic method due to its cost-efficient advantage because it does not need an active source. Techniques in using SI to retrieve surface waves are relatively well established, but using SI to retrieve body waves is still under development by many authors. These geophysicists have proved that many factors, such as average duration of the natural sources, the number of natural sources that occurred during recording time, source distribution, etc., influence the quality of body waves retrieved. In this research, I focus on how to make use of the attenuation property of weathered …

Stabilized Least Squares Migration, Graham Ganssle

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Before raw seismic data records are interpretable by geologists, geophysicists must process these data using a technique called migration. Migration spatially repositions the acoustic energy in a seismic record to its correct location in the subsurface. Traditional migration techniques used a transpose approximation to a true acoustic propagation operator. Conventional least squares migration uses a true inverse operator, but is limited in functionality by the large size of modern seismic datasets. This research uses a new technique, called stabilized least squares migration, to correctly migrate seismic data records using a true inverse operator. Contrary to conventional least squares migration, this …

Petroleum Play Study Of The Keathley Canyon, Gulf Of Mexico, Jean Pierre Malbrough

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Beneath Keathley Canyon (KC) off the Southern Coast of Louisiana and Texas, allochthonous salt bodies have attained thicknesses of over 7620 m (25000 feet), providing excellent seals and migration pathways for hydrocarbons produced by post-rift sedimentary deposition. This study analyzes a small portion of the KC area, utilizing Petrel Seismic software and well information from the KC102 (Tiber) well.

An intra-Miocene wedge, expressed beneath salt, may provide information about movement of allochthonous salt over Wilcox sands, sediment compaction, and hydrocarbon pathways. Progradational sedimentation is the driving force which leads to faulting in the early Miocene, allowing Jurassic salt to rise, …

Submarine Channel Evolution Linked To Rising Salt Dome, Mississippi Canyon, Gulf Of Mexico, Rachel C. Carter

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

By examining halokinetics and channel evolution in a deep-water system, we investigate how submarine channel morphology is affected by changing seascape linked to diapirism. The study area is located in Mississippi Canyon, Gulf of Mexico (GOM), situated directly off the continental slope in a prominent salt dome region. Interactions of salt domes with submarine channels in the GOM are poorly documented. Utilizing 3D seismic data and seismic geomorphology techniques, a long-lived Plio-Pleistocene submarine channel system has been investigated to develop a relationship between variable phases of salt movement and plan-form morphology of preserved channels.

We suggest that halokinetics acts as …

A Preliminary Assessment Of Water Partitioning And Ecohydrological Coupling In Northern Headwaters Using Stable Isotopes And Conceptual Runoff Models, James P. Mcnamara

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

We combined a conceptual rainfall-runoff model and input–output relationships of stable isotopes to understand ecohydrological influences on hydrological partitioning in snow-influenced northern catchments. Six sites in Sweden (Krycklan), Canada (Wolf Creek; Baker Creek; Dorset), Scotland (Girnock) and the USA (Dry Creek) span moisture and energy gradients found at high latitudes. A meta-analysis was carried out using the Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) model to estimate the main storage changes characterizing annual water balances. Annual snowpack storage importance was ranked as Wolf Creek > Krycklan > Dorset > Baker Creek > Dry Creek > Girnock. The subsequent rate and longevity of melt were reflected in calibrated parameters …

A Seismic Transect Across West Antarctica: Evidence For Mantle Thermal Anomalies Beneath The Bentley Subglacial Trench And The Marie Byrd Land Dome, Andrew J. Lloyd, Douglas A. Wiens, Andrew A. Nyblade, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Richard C. Aster, Audrey D. Huerta, Terry J. Wilson, Ian W. D. Dalziel, Patrick J. Shore, Dapeng Zhao

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

West Antarctica consists of several tectonically diverse terranes, including the West Antarctic Rift System, a topographic low region of extended continental crust. In contrast, the adjacent Marie Byrd Land and Ellsworth-Whitmore mountains crustal blocks are on average over 1km higher, with the former dominated by polygenetic shield and stratovolcanoes protruding through the West Antarctic ice sheet and the latter having a Precambrian basement. The upper mantle structure of these regions is important for inferring the geologic history and tectonic processes, as well as the influence of the solid earth on ice sheet dynamics. Yet this structure is poorly constrained due …

Inverse Modelling Of The Reversely Magnetized, Shallow Plumbing System Hosting Oil Reservoirs Of The Auca Mahuida Volcano (Payeina Retroarc, Neuquén Basin, Argentina), John Paine, Riccardo De Ritis, Guido Ventura, Mariana Longo, Dhananjay Ravat, Fabio Speranza, Massimo Chiappini

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

The Auca Mahuida volcano (2.03–0.88 Ma) located east of the Andean thrust front in the Neuquén basin (Argentina) hosts an oil system of thermogenic origin and is affected by the NW–SE striking-faults. Intrusive bodies and the underlying Jurassic sediments constitute the reservoir rocks. Aeromagnetic data collected in the Auca Mahuida area detected multiple dipolar magnetic anomalies, many of which have reverse polarity. Palaeomagnetic measurements on rock samples collected in the field together with available age determinations indicate that the reversely magnetized sources were mainly emplaced during the Matuyama reverse polarity chron while the normal polarity sources were emplaced during the …

Natural Degradation Of Earthworks, Trenches, Walls And Moats, Northern Thailand, Spencer H. Wood, Layle R. Wood, Alan D. Ziegler

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

“………..structures of this kind are hidden away securely under the thick overgrowth: thus does nature preserve what man would surely destroy” (from Sumet Jumsai, 1970)

We investigate the geometry, age, and history of several enigmatic northern Thailand earthwork entrenchments that are mostly located on hills and could not have held water to form moats. The earthworks are either oval or rectangular in map view; and they typically encircle 0.3-to-1-km² areas that do not have potsherd debris indicative of former towns. Most trenches are 3-5 m deep with inner walls 4.5-8 m high. Some encircling earthworks are concentric double trenches …

Using Foraminifera Shell Geochemistry To Test Proxies For Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Catherine Hudson

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Infrasound From Volcanic Rockfalls, Jeffrey B. Johnson, Timothy J. Ronan

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Proximal infrasound arrays can robustly track rapidly moving gravity-driven mass wasting, which occurs commonly at erupting volcanoes. This study reports on detection, localization, and quantification of frequent small rockfalls and infrequent pyroclastic density currents descending the southeast flanks of Santiaguito’s active Caliente Dome in January of 2014. Such activities are identified as moving sources, which descend several hundred meters at bulk flow speeds of up to ~10 m/s, which is considerably slower than the descent velocity of individual blocks. Infrasound rockfall signal character is readily distinguishable from explosion infrasound, which is manifested by a relatively fixed location source with lower …

Validation Of The Global Distribution Of Co2 Volume Mixing Ratio In The Mesosphere And Lower Thermosphere From Saber, L. Rezac, Y. Jian, J. Yue, J. M. Russell Iii, A. Kutepov, R. Garcia, K. Walker, P. Bernath

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument on board the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics satellite has been measuring the limb radiance in 10 broadband infrared channels over the altitude range from ~ 400 km to the Earth's surface since 2002. The kinetic temperatures and CO₂ volume mixing ratios (VMRs) in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere have been simultaneously retrieved using SABER limb radiances at 15 and 4.3 μm under nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) conditions. This paper presents results of a validation study of the SABER CO₂ VMRs obtained with a two-channel, self-consistent …

The Structural Analysis Of Enola And Greenbrier, Arkansas Earthquake Swarms: Cause And Effect?, Minella Majenu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Almost 20 years after the remarkable earthquake swarm of 1982, near the town of Enola, Arkansas, with more than 40,000 micro-earthquakes, another event revisited the same North-Central Arkansas region in 2001. Nine years later, in 2010, a huge swarm event shook the northern part of Faulkner County, around the city of Guy. The following year, this seismic swarm event apparently migrated southward towards the city of Greenbrier, with an increase in the number of yearly recorded events. A 13km previously unrecognized, NE trending Guy-Greenbrier basement fault was revealed as a result of these swarm events.

Within the vicinity of the …

Hidden Intrabasin Extension: Evidence For Dike-Fault Interaction From Magnetic, Gravity, And Seismic Reflection Data In Surprise Valley, Northeastern California, Noah D. Athens, Jonathan M.G. Glen, Simon L. Klemperer, Anne E. Egger, Valentina C. Fontiveros

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The relative contributions of tectonic and magmatic processes to continental rifting are highly variable. Magnetic, gravity, and seismic reflection data from Surprise Valley, California, in the northwest Basin and Range, reveal an intrabasin, fault-controlled, ~10-m-thick dike at a depth of ~150 m, providing an excellent example of the interplay between faulting and dike intrusion. The dike, likely a composite structure representing multiple successive intrusions, is inferred from modeling a positive magnetic anomaly that extends ~35 km and parallels the basin-bounding Surprise Valley normal fault on the west side of the valley. A two-dimensional high-resolution seismic reflection profile acquired across the …

Geophysical Evidence For Mid-Crustal Magma Reservoirs In The Lassen Volcanic Region, California, Samantha Catherine Tavarez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Regional-scale complete Bouguer gravity anomalies underlying the Lassen and Shasta -Medicine Lake regions in northern California and southern Oregon are associated with subduction of the Gorda plate beneath North America. These generally negative anomalies reflect where underplating has deepened to form the mantle wedge, and where subduction has given rise to a series of Quaternary volcanoes comprising the southernmost end of the Cascade range. Multiple conductive bodies were identified by Park and Ostos (2013) in their magnetotelluric (MT) study of the broader Lassen volcanic region. Their broadband and long period measurements were conducted along a 250 km profile spanning from …

Streambed And Water Profile Response To In-Channel Restoration Structures In A Laboratory Meandering Stream, Bangshuai Han, Hong-Hanh Chu, Theodore A. Endreny

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

In-channel structures are often installed in alluvial rivers during restoration to steer currents, but they also modify the streambed morphology and water surface profile, and alter hydraulic gradients driving ecologically important hyporheic exchange. Although river features before and after restoration need to be compared, few studies have collected detailed observations to facilitate this comparison. We created a laboratory mobile-bed alluvial meandering river and collected detailed measurements in the highly sinuous meander before and after installation of in-channel structures, which included one cross vane and six J-hooks situated along 1 bar unit. Measurements of streambed and water surface elevation with sub-millimeter …

Numerical Simulation Of Spring Hydrograph Recession Curves For East Yorkshire Chalk Aquifer, Uk, Nozad Hasan Azeez, Landis Jared West, Simon H. Bottrell

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The Cretaceous Chalk aquifer is the most important in the UK for the provision of water to public supply and agriculture. The Chalk has both matrix and fracture porosity and is thus best considered as a dual porosity aquifer system. Although the matrix porosity is large, typically around 0.35 in the study area of East Yorkshire, UK (ESI, 2010), pore diameters are typically very small, and the water contained in them is virtually immobile. The high permeability fracture network is responsible for the ability of water to drain; spatial variations in fracture network properties mean conventional approaches to aquifer characterization …

Using Electrical Resistivity Imaging To Characterize Karst Hazards In Southeastern Minnesota Agricultural Settings, Toby Dogwiler, Blake Lea

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Much of the Driftless Area of southeastern Minnesota is underlain by karstified carbonate bedrock. Land use in this karst terrain is dominated by agriculture, including row crop and dairy operations. The karst in this region is often mantled with up to 15 m of soil and unconsolidated sediments. As a result, underlying karst hazards such as incipient sinkholes are often hidden until they are suddenly revealed by the collapse of subsurface voids. Regionally, the economics of the dairy industry is causing a trend toward the consolidation and expansion of existing operations. As concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) or feedlots expand, …

Investigation Of A Sinkhole In Ogle County, Northwestern Illinois, Using Near-Surface Geophysical Techniques, Philip J. Carpenter, Lauren Schroeder

Sinkhole Conference 2015

A sinkhole measuring 40 m in diameter and up to 6.5 m deep occurs within the Nachusa Grasslands, near the town of Franklin Grove, northwestern Illinois. This area, dedicated to prairie conservation and restoration, is owned and operated by The Nature Conservancy. Several meters of unconsolidated sand, gravel, and clay overlie the St. Peter sandstone, beneath which lies karstic Prairie du Chien dolomite. Investigations included EM conductivity profiles, resistivity soundings, 2D resistivity, and ground- penetrating radar (GPR), supplemented by conductivity logs, soil cores, and tree core studies. These data indicate the sandstone averages about 5 m deep near the sinkhole …

Characterization Of Karst Terrain Using Geophysical Methods Based On Sinkhole Analysis: A Case Study Of The Anina Karstic Region (Banat Mountains, Romania), Laurentiu Artugyan, Adrian C. Ardelean, Petru Urdea

Sinkhole Conference 2015

To understand karst topography, we must determine both the nature and the factors that are defining dissolution processes in soluble rocks, as well as the drainage network resulting from these processes. The goal of this paper is to understand the underground drainage direction configuration and, also, the factors that are involved in surface water drainage of the Anina karstic region. In this study we used two complementary geophysical methods, spontaneous potential (SP) and ground penetrating radar (GPR), applied in 5 sinkholes with a funnel shaped aspect. Four of these sinkholes are circular and one of them is elongated NW-SE direction. …

Rollalong Resistivity Surveys Reveal Karstic Paleotopography Developed On Near-Surface Gypsum Bedrock: Lower Pecos Valley, Southeastern New Mexico, Lewis Land

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Following flooding in September 2013, several areas in northern Eddy County, New Mexico were damaged by multiple sinkhole collapses. We conducted rollalong electrical resistivity (ER) surveys for subsurface cavities parallel to roads within and near the community of Lakewood, NM to guide road repairs. The rollalong method allowed us to generate exceptionally long, continuous ER profiles of the survey area. ER surveys attained a maximum exploration depth of 55 to 62 meters over a lateral extent of ~1000 meters, revealing an unconformable surface developed on gypsum bedrock, punctuated by shallow depressions. Subsurface stratigraphy, including clay-rich valley fill sediments, and mudstone …

Pre-Construction Rock Treatment And Soil Modification Program Using Low Mobility Grout To Mitigate Future Sinkhole Development In A 2,787.1 Square Meter (30,000 Sf) Maintenance Facility, Steven W. Shifflett

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The US Army required construction of a 2,787.1 square meters (30,000 sf) maintenance facility supported on shallow foundations at the Fort Campbell Military Installation. During the subsurface investigation a seven foot air-filled void was encountered in the bedrock within the building footprint. Electrical Resistivity Imaging (ERI) was conducted in an attempt to determine the lateral extent of the encountered void and to establish the general prevalence of karst features at the site. Due to uncertainty in the subsurface conditions, a rock treatment and soil modification program was developed which consisted of a series of targeted exploratory grout holes advanced in …

Landslides And Megathrust Splay Faults Captured By The Late Holocene Sediment Record Of Eastern Prince William Sound, Alaska, Shaun P. Finn, Lee M. Liberty, Peter J. Haeussler, Thomas L. Pratt

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present new marine seismic‐reflection profiles and bathymetric maps to characterize Holocene depositional patterns, submarine landslides, and active faults beneath eastern and central Prince William Sound (PWS), Alaska, which is the eastern rupture patch of the 1964 M_w 9.2 earthquake. We show evidence that submarine landslides, many of which are likely earthquake triggered, repeatedly released along the southern margin of Orca Bay in eastern PWS. We document motion on reverse faults during the 1964 Great Alaska earthquake and estimate late Holocene slip rates for these growth faults, which splay from the subduction zone megathrust. Regional bathymetric lineations help define …

Cordilleran Front Range Structural Features In Northwest Montana Interpreted From Vintage Seismic 2 Reflection Data, Mason Porter

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Industry seismic reflection data were collected in 1983 in the Rocky Mountain Cordillera front ranges of northwest Montana. These seismic profiles represent 160 km of deep reflection data that cross the eastern Purcell anticlinorium, Rocky Mountain Trench (RMT), Rocky Mountain Basal Detachment (RMBD), and Lewis thrust. We have reprocessed these data using modern processing techniques including refraction statics, pre-stack time migration (PSTM), and pre- and post-stack depth migration. The RMT contains Tertiary fill to 1 km depth and the RMT fault system has a minimum of 3-4 km of normal displacement. The RMT and Flathead fault systems are interpreted to …

Investigation Of Ambient Seismic Noise Using Seismic Interferometry In Western Montana, Natalia Krzywosz

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Passive seismic interferometry is a process by which ambient noise data recorded at different seismic stations can be cross-correlated to estimate Green's functions. In the past, both surface waves and body waves have successfully been extracted by cross-correlation of ambient noise data on both regional and global scales. In this study, I have generated Matlab code to simulate an application of seismic interferometry on a synthetic model with pre-defined layers and p-wave velocities. For areas with known velocity models, the Matlab code produced in this study can be used to generate synthetic seismograms, and model the effects of cross-correlation on …

A Hydrogeophysical Investigation Of Logan, Mt Using Electrical Techniques And Seismic Refraction Tomography, Taylor Stipe

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Logan, Montana USA is located on the Gallatin River, one of the three rivers forming the headwaters of the Missouri River. Previous hydrogeological studies have determined that the location at Logan is a possible pinch-point for the local Gallatin watershed where shallow groundwater is expected to discharge into the Gallatin River. However, groundwater monitoring wells indicate dry Tertiary sediments overlying bedrock, suggesting surface and groundwater systems are disconnected. We performed shallow seismic refraction, electrical resistivity, spontaneous potential, and electromagnetic surveys to investigate the groundwater system in the study area. Geophysical measurements were obtained near the Gallatin River and close to …

Seasonal And Diurnal Cycles Of Liquid Water In Snow—Measurements And Modeling, A. Heilig, C. Mitterer, L. Schmid, N. Wever, J. Schweizer, H.-P. Marshall, O. Eisen

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Evaluating and improving snow models and outflow predictions for hydrological applications is hindered by the lack of continuous data on bulk volumetric liquid water content (��_w) and storage capacity of the melting snowpack. The combination of upward looking ground-penetrating radar and conventional snow height sensors enable continuous, nondestructive determinations of ��_w in natural snow covers from first surficial wetting until shortly before melt out. We analyze diurnal and seasonal cycles of ��_w for 4 years in a flat study site and for three melt seasons on slopes and evaluate model simulations for two different water …