In the initial phase of Project No. 6, we planned and carried out a survey, thereby collecting seismic and ground penetrating radar data from the Bedretto Underground Geoscience and Geoenergy Laboratory. This data will be later used to validate our improved methodology and showcase the potential of novel imaging techniques in the realm of geothermal energy.

In the last month, I investigated baseline and monitoring data from a carbon capture in storage (CCS) site in Norway. High resolution monitoring techniques are vital in ensuring the safety of operation of the storage site. To leverage the full power of high-resolution techniques, removing source- and receiver related artifacts from the tomography is key. We investigated traditional source- and receiver modelling techniques and proposed a new technique to address this problem in the time-domain. Applying these new techniques to the CCS baseline dataset supports our findings and a methodological paper is currently in preparation. We expect the application of these techniques to the monitoring dataset to reveal strong potential in high-resolution seismic techniques in CCS monitoring.

Currently I am also investigating, how different joint-inversion techniques can be combined. Strong coupling techniques like petrophysical joint inversions should only be employed when there is evidence of a strong petrophysical link. Therefore, I develop a “fool-proof” petrophysical joint-inversion scheme, that judges the validity of the petrophysical link on the fly and adjusts the inversion process accordingly.