Using converted shear waves to image reservoirs with low-impedance contrast

Imaging sand/shale sequences is problematic when the impedance contrast between them is very small, a problem commonly encountered in basins with Tertiary clastics. Impedance trends for sand and shale in these basins display higher impedances for shales than for sands at shallow depths; however, sands exhibit higher impedances than shales at greater depths. That implies a crossover between the trends at some depth and that it is going to be difficult to image sands near the crossover depth with traditional seismic surveys.