Noise-based seismic tomography at the Valhall Oil Field with using Scholte and Love waves

We present here Scholte and Love wave phase velocity tomography at the Valhall Oil Field using ambient noise recorded by a network of 3D multi-component ocean bottom cable. We have cross-correlated 6.5 hours of continuous recording of noise between vertical-vertical (ZZ), radial-radial (RR), and transverse-transverse (TT) components. After applying an F-K filter, we were able to extract the first overtone of Scholte waves at Valhall from the RR cross-correlations. We then used the filtered overtone waveforms to measure inter-station frequency-dependent phase time delays and constructed 2D phase-velocity maps with the Eikonal tomography method.

Furthermore, we compute average dispersion curves for Scholte and Love waves by combining information from more than 10 millions of individual cross-correlations. We use the Neighbourhood algorithm to invert jointly these dispersion curves and to obtain an average 1D anisotropic model of the Valhall overburden down to depths of ~1 km. We find a significant radial anisotropy at depths below 600 m. This average 1D model is used as a reference model for the 3D inversion.