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Application of Seismic Anisotropy Caused by Fissures in Coal Seams to the Detection of Coal‐bed Methane Reservoirs
Author(s) -
Mei LIU,
Jingwei GOU,
Guangming YU,
Jiandong LIN
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
acta geologica sinica ‐ english edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1755-6724
pISSN - 1000-9515
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-6724.2000.tb00487.x
Subject(s) - geology , coal mining , coal , anisotropy , methane , fissure , perpendicular , geometry , optics , ecology , paleontology , physics , mathematics , biology , engineering , waste management
Coal‐bed methane is accumulated in micro‐fissures and cracks in coal seams. The coal seam is the source terrace and reservoir bed of the coal‐bed methane (Qian et al., 1996). Anisotropy of coal seams is caused by the existence of fissures. Based on the theory of S wave splitting: an S wave will be divided into two S waves with nearly orthogonal polarization directions when passing through anisotropic media, i.e. the fast S wave with its direction of propagation parallel to that of the fissure and slow S wave with the direction of propagation perpendicular to that of the fissure. This paper gives the results of laboratory research and field test on the S wave splitting caused by coal‐seam fissures. The results show that it is feasible to detect fissures in coal seams by applying the converted S wave and finally gives the development zone and development direction of these fissures.