239 7. Seismic inversion and characterization applied to geothermal energy Conclusions and perspectives The seismic inversion and characterization are disciplines that aim at converting seismic amplitude into key reservoir properties, leading to valuable information between wells to lower the risk while planning exploration or development of geothermal production, either with low or high depth objectives. The state-of-theart, originally designed for the oil and gas industry, is also perfectly adapted for the geothermal industry, either based on 2D or 3D seismic data. Either in prospection or development phase for a geothermal project, all available data, including legacy ones, has a lot of value. The proposed case study illustrates how the reservoir presence and quality could have been identified between wells. The fracture characterization plays a crucial role in identifying zones with secondary porosity and enhanced permeability, increasing the prospectivity. This fracture connectivity must be evaluated, not to connect with aquifer of different temperatures. Both matrix and fracture characterization together help build scenarios and derisk the development of the geothermal project. If any seismic data is available in a studied area, this kind of analysis is always a good option, either to identify and confirm the presence, the depth or the thickness of the reservoir, or evaluate the potential flow rate by estimating the porosity (then permeability, by lithology) or the presence of sub-seismic faults and fractures. The petro-elastic model can be analyzed even before acquiring or reprocessing seismic data, to assess what results could be obtained, although some recent advances in unsupervised machine learning techniques may overcome these expectations. The seismic characterization results are key information to assess the economic viability of geothermal development, completing information from other disciplines such as the thermal gradient assessment, the estimation of the drilling cost to be put against a reasonable time of depreciation of the geothermal project. References Aki K., Richards P.G. (1980) Quantitative seismology: Theory and methods, 1: W. H. Freeman and Co. Al-Emadi A., Robinson S., Jedaan N., Desgoutte N., Blum M., Lecante G., Caline B., Fraisse C. (2010) Use of Pre-Stack Seismic Data to Guide the 3D RockType Distribution of Arab-D inMaydan Mahzam High-Resolution Geological Model, https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.248.458. Baillet R., de Freslon N., Thomas V., Castellanos R., Denogean E. (2024) Fracture and matrix characterization using wide-azimuth and multi-component seismic data: a case study from offshore Mexico, Fourth International Meeting for Applied Geoscience & Energy, 144-148, https://doi.org/10.1190/image2024-4101418.1.
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