EGU22-660
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-660
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The role of pore space topology on ultrasonic wave propagation in volcanic rocks.

Maria Del Pilar Di Martino1, Luca De Siena2, and Nicola Tisato3
Maria Del Pilar Di Martino et al.
  • 1School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK (p.dimartino@abdn.ac.uk)
  • 2Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany
  • 3Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

At the field scale, petro-elastic models linking seismic velocities with porosity have been widely used to estimate properties of reservoirs and subsurface domains in general. At the laboratory scale, frame elastic properties and porosity are not enough to predict the full ultrasonic wave propagation, and other factors like texture, pore space topology and fluid interactions play a significant role. In dry volcanic rocks characterized by larges vesicles, the heterogeneities triggering the perturbations of the ultrasonic wavefield mainly correspond to the pore space topology. However, the sensitivity of S-waveforms to the pore space has not been examined in volcanic rocks.

To assess the role of the pore space on ultrasonic wave propagation, we performed computational simulations on 2D synthetic samples analogous to volcanic rocks, resembling the acquisition of S-waveforms in laboratory experiments. The computational framework applied is the spectral-element method. The porosity and aspect ratio on the study samples was kept constant along the simulations to focus on the effect that the pore space parameters have on the wave arrival, amplitude, and shape of the waveforms.

This study shows that the pore space topology controls the waveform of ultrasonic waves in dry volcanic rocks, and parameters like amount, size, and even the location of the pores impact the elastic wave propagation independently of the porosity value. This finding has important implications for forward modelling seismic signals of heterogeneous volcanic media at the field scale.

How to cite: Di Martino, M. D. P., De Siena, L., and Tisato, N.: The role of pore space topology on ultrasonic wave propagation in volcanic rocks., EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-660, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-660, 2022.