A Simple Method for Estimating Shale Brittleness From Seismic Data: An Example From Offshore Norway

The brittleness of a caprock layer is an important property to measure, as it influences sealing integrity for subsurface fluid injection projects. However, brittleness is a complex function of various factors, such as mineral composition, diagenesis and effective stress, and consequently can vary spatially. Because well log‐based methods for brittleness estimation are often spatially limited, we develop a simple workflow to estimate the brittleness of a shale formation directly from seismic data. The shale in question is the Draupne Formation of the Upper Jurassic age, which acts as a primary seal of Viking Group sandstones in the Horda Platform area of the northern North Sea for hydrocarbon extraction (e.g., the Troll field) and geological CO 2 storage (e.g., Smeaheia). First, well log data from 26 wells in the Horda Platform area is aggregated, focusing on the compressional sonic, bulk density and resistivity values of the Draupne Formation. This data are used to establish a linear model relating the acoustic impedance and elastic properties‐estimated brittleness index (BI) of the Draupne Formation; these two quantities display a correlation of 0.86. By combining this acoustic impedance information with a wavelet extracted from field seismic data and using average acoustic properties for the relatively homogeneous underlying sandstone reservoir, synthetic seismograms corresponding to different BI values of the Draupne Formation are generated. The amplitudes extracted from the synthetic seismograms are then used to establish a quadratic model relating seismic amplitudes at the base Draupne reflection with the BI. Applying this quadratic model on a 2D seismic line from the Stord Basin (south of the Horda Platform) results in BI values that are close to elastic‐properties‐based values at wells which intersect the seismic line and an expected trend of increasing brittleness with respect to depth. This integrated method can be used as part of a workflow to characterize top seal effectiveness, which may be useful in fluid storage prospect evaluation.