Joint electromagnetic and seismic inversion using structural constraints

Abstract We have developed a frequency-domain joint electromagnetic (EM) and seismic inversion algorithm for reservoir evaluation and exploration applications. EM and seismic data are jointly inverted using a cross-gradient constraint that enforces structural similarity between the conductivity image and the compressional wave (P-wave) velocity image. The inversion algorithm is based on a Gauss-Newton optimization approach. Because of the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem, regularization is used to constrain the solution. The multiplicative regularization technique selects the regularization parameters automatically, improving the robustness of the algorithm. A multifrequency data-weighting scheme prevents the high-frequency data from dominating the inversion process. When the joint-inversion algorithm is applied in integrating marine controlled-source electromagnetic data with surface seismic data for subsea reservoir exploration applications and in integrating crosswell EM and sonic data for reservoir monitoring and evaluation applications, results improve significantly over those obtained from separate EM or seismic inversions.