Direct Time Lapse Inversion of Seismic Data

A method of seismic data processing to obtain a time-lapse data volume comprising:

• a) acquiring a first prestack seismic dataset and a second prestack seismic dataset wherein the second prestack seismic dataset has a time-lapse relationship to the first prestack seismic dataset;
• b) inverting the first prestack seismic dataset for determination of a first source wavelet data set and a first reflectivity parameters data set;
• c) obtaining a perturbation data set by simultaneously minimizing:
• i) an L1-Norm between a portion of the first reflectivity parameters data set and reflectivity parameters for the second data set;
• ii) an L2-Norm between the first source wavelet data set and a source wavelet for the second data set;
• iii) an L2-Norm for data misfit between the first prestack seismic data set and the second prestack seismic data set;
• and
• d) recording the perturbation data set as a time-lapse data volume in a form for display.

A set of application program interfaces embodied on a computer readable medium for execution by a processor for calculating a direct time-lapse inversion data set to locate temporal changes in subsurface reservoirs comprising:

• a) a first interface that receives a first prestack seismic dataset and a second prestack seismic dataset wherein the second prestack seismic dataset has a time-lapse relationship to the first prestack seismic dataset;
• b) a second interface that receives a first source wavelet data set inverted from the first prestack seismic dataset;
• c) a third interface that receives a first reflectivity parameters dataset inverted from the first prestack seismic dataset;
• and
• d) a fourth interface that receives a perturbation dataset determined from a simultaneous minimization of:
• i) an L1-Norm between a portion of the first reflectivity parameters data set and reflectivity parameters for the second data set;
• ii) an L2-Norm between the first source wavelet data set and a source wavelet for the second data set;
• iii) an L2-Norm for data misfit between the first prestack seismic data set and the second prestack seismic data set.