Solving multiphysics-based inverse problems with learned surrogates and constraints

Solving multiphysics-based inverse problems for geological carbon storage monitoring can be challenging when multimodal time-lapse data are expensive to collect and costly to simulate numerically. We overcome these challenges by combining computationally cheap learned surrogates with learned constraints. Not only does this combination lead to vastly improved inversions for the important fluid-flow property, permeability, it also provides a natural platform for inverting multimodal data including well measurements and active-source time-lapse seismic data. By adding a learned constraint, we arrive at a computationally feasible inversion approach that remains accurate. This is accomplished by including a trained deep neural network, known as a normalizing flow, which forces the model iterates to remain in-distribution, thereby safeguarding the accuracy of trained Fourier neural operators that act as surrogates for the computationally expensive multiphase flow simulations involving partial differential equation solves. By means of carefully selected experiments, centered around the problem of geological carbon storage, we demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed constrained optimization method on two different data modalities, namely time-lapse well and time-lapse seismic data. While permeability inversions from both these two modalities have their pluses and minuses, their joint inversion benefits from either, yielding valuable superior permeability inversions and CO2 plume predictions near, and far away, from the monitoring wells

Extended source imaging, a unifying framework for seismic & medical imaging

We present three imaging modalities that live on the crossroads of seismic and medical imaging. Through the lens of extended source imaging, we can draw deep connections among the fields of wave-equation based seismic and medical imaging, despite first appearances. From the seismic perspective, we underline the importance to work with the correct physics and spatially varying velocity fields. Medical imaging, on the other hand, opens the possibility for new imaging modalities where outside stimuli, such as laser or radar pulses, can not only be used to identify endogenous optical or thermal contrasts but that these sources can also be used to insonify the medium so that images of the whole specimen can in principle be created.Comment: Submitted to the Society of Exploration Geophysicists Annual Meeting 202

3D seismic survey design by maximizing the spectral gap

The massive cost of 3D acquisition calls for methods to reduce the number of receivers by designing optimal receiver sampling masks. Recent studies on 2D seismic showed that maximizing the spectral gap of the subsampling mask leads to better wavefield reconstruction results. We enrich the current study by proposing a simulation-free method to generate optimal 3D acquisition by maximizing the spectral gap of the subsampling mask via a simulated annealing algorithm. Numerical experiments confirm improvement of the proposed method over receiver sampling locations obtained by jittered sampling

De-risking geological carbon storage from high resolution time-lapse seismic to explainable leakage detection

Geological carbon storage represents one of the few truly scalable technologies capable of reducing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. While this technology has the potential to scale, its success hinges on our ability to mitigate its risks. An important aspect of risk mitigation concerns assurances that the injected CO2 remains within the storage complex. Amongst the different monitoring modalities, seismic imaging stands out with its ability to attain high resolution and high fidelity images. However, these superior features come, unfortunately, at prohibitive costs and time-intensive efforts potentially rendering extensive seismic monitoring undesirable. To overcome this shortcoming, we present a methodology where time-lapse images are created by inverting non-replicated time-lapse monitoring data jointly. By no longer insisting on replication of the surveys to obtain high fidelity time-lapse images and differences, extreme costs and time-consuming labor are averted. To demonstrate our approach, hundreds of noisy time-lapse seismic datasets are simulated that contain imprints of regular CO2 plumes and irregular plumes that leak. These time-lapse datasets are subsequently inverted to produce time-lapse difference images used to train a deep neural classifier. The testing results show that the classifier is capable of detecting CO2 leakage automatically on unseen data and with a reasonable accuracy