Conventional and non-conventional differencing in time-lapse

Vanja Vracar (née Milicevic), Robert James Ferguson

We present a comparison between the conventional time-lapse differencing and the new non-conventional differencing method based on the inverse data matrix. We use 2D variable velocity models and their corresponding migrated synthetic seismograms to represent three snapshots in time-lapse. Conventional differencing performed on the time-lapse data captures no amplitude patterns and proves to be of limited use in reservoir characterization. On the other hand, non-conventional differencing by inverse data matrix captures some amplitude patters and offers more intuitive plots for interpretation.