Geology topics

A. Revil

Publications and source records attributed to A. Revil.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2017

Field-scale observations of a transient geobattery resulting from natural attenuation of a crude oil spill

We present evidence of a geobattery associated with microbial degradation of a mature crude oil spill. Self-potential measurements were collected using a vertical array of nonpolarizing electrodes, starting at the land surface and passing through the smear zone where seasonal water table fluctuations have resulted in the coating of hydrocarbons on the aquifer solids. These passive electrical potential measurements exhibit a dipolar pattern associated with a current source. The anodic and cathodic reactions of this natural battery occur below and above the smear zone, respectively. The smear zone is characterized by high magnetic susceptibility values associated with the precipitation of semiconductive magnetic iron phase minerals as a by-product of biodegradation, facilitating electron transfer between the anode and the cathode. This geobattery response appears to have a transient nature, changing on a monthly scale, probably resulting from chemical and physical changes in subsurface conditions such as water table fluctuations.

Journal of Geophysical Research G: Biogeosciences↗

USGS2012

Imaging with cross-hole seismoelectric tomography

We propose a cross-hole imaging approach based on seismoelectric conversions (SC) associated with the transmission of seismic waves from seismic sources located in a borehole to receivers (electrodes) located in a second borehole. The seismoelectric (seismic-to-electric) problem is solved using Biot theory coupled with a generalized Ohm's law with an electrokinetic streaming current contribution. The components of the displacement of the solid phase, the fluid pressure, and the electrical potential are solved using a finite element approach with Perfect Match Layer (PML) boundary conditions for the seismic waves and boundary conditions mimicking an infinite material for the electrostatic problem. We develop an inversion algorithm using the electrical disturbances recorded in the second borehole to localize the position of the heterogeneities responsible for the SC. Because of the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem (inherent to all potential-field problems), regularization is used to constrain the solution at each time in the SC-time window comprised between the time of the seismic shot and the time of the first arrival of the seismic waves in the second borehole. All the inverted volumetric current source densities are aggregated together to produce an image of the position of the heterogeneities between the two boreholes. Two simple synthetic case studies are presented to test this concept. The first case study corresponds to a vertical discontinuity between two homogeneous sub-domains. The second case study corresponds to a poroelastic inclusion (partially saturated by oil) embedded into an homogenous poroelastic formation. In both cases, the position of the heterogeneity is recovered using only the electrical disturbances associated with the SC. That said, a joint inversion of the seismic and seismoelectric data could improve these results.

Geophysical Journal International↗

USGS2011

Time-lapse three-dimensional inversion of complex conductivity data using an active time constrained (ATC) approach

Induced polarization (more precisely the magnitude and phase of impedance of the subsurface) is measured using a network of electrodes located at the ground surface or in boreholes. This method yields important information related to the distribution of permeability and contaminants in the shallow subsurface. We propose a new time-lapse 3-D modelling and inversion algorithm to image the evolution of complex conductivity over time. We discretize the subsurface using hexahedron cells. Each cell is assigned a complex resistivity or conductivity value. Using the finite-element approach, we model the in-phase and out-of-phase (quadrature) electrical potentials on the 3-D grid, which are then transformed into apparent complex resistivity. Inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions are used at the boundary of the domain. The calculation of the Jacobian matrix is based on the principles of reciprocity. The goal of time-lapse inversion is to determine the change in the complex resistivity of each cell of the spatial grid as a function of time. Each model along the time axis is called a ‘reference space model’. This approach can be simplified into an inverse problem looking for the optimum of several reference space models using the approximation that the material properties vary linearly in time between two subsequent reference models. Regularizations in both space domain and time domain reduce inversion artefacts and improve the stability of the inversion problem. In addition, the use of the time-lapse equations allows the simultaneous inversion of data obtained at different times in just one inversion step (4-D inversion). The advantages of this new inversion algorithm are demonstrated on synthetic time-lapse data resulting from the simulation of a salt tracer test in a heterogeneous random material described by an anisotropic semi-variogram.

Geophysical Journal International↗

USGS2011

Imaging using cross-hole seismoelectric tomography

We propose a new cross-hole imaging approach based on seismoelectric conversions associated with the transmission of seismic waves from seismic sources located in a borehole to receivers electrodes located in a second borehole. The seismoelectric seismic-to-electric problem is solved using Biot theory coupled with a generalized Ohm's law with an electrokinetic coupling term. The components of the displacement of the solid phase, the fluid pressure, and the electrical potential are solved using a finite element approach with PML boundary conditions for the seismic waves and boundary conditions mimicking an infinite material for the electrostatic problem. We have developed an inversion algorithm using the electrical disturbances recorded in the second borehole to localize the position of the heterogeneities responsible for the seismoelectric conversions. Because of the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem, regularization is used to constrain the solution at each time in the seismoelectric time window comprised between the time of the seismic shot and the time of the first arrival of the seismic waves in the second borehole. All the inverted volumetric current source densities are stacked to produce an image of the position of the heterogeneities between the two boreholes. Two simple synthetic case studies are presented to test this concept. The first case study corresponds to a vertical discontinuity between two homogeneous sub-domains. The second case study corresponds to a poroelastic inclusion embedded into an homogenous poroelastic formation. In both cases, the position of the heterogeneity is fairly well-recovered using only the electrical disturbances associated with the seismoelectric conversions. ?? 2011 Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts↗