Tomographic seismic imaging of a carbonate core at the laboratory scale

Summary Carbonate rocks studies are of particular interest in exploration. Such rocks are generally heterogeneous, anisotropic, porous and fractured and imaging their petrophysical properties are usually challenging with classical techniques. We present here a laboratory study where seismic tomography, a widely used method in Earth interior imaging, is tested on a decimetric carbonate core. The goal is to obtain a high-resolution Vp tomography of the interior of the carbonate rock using innovative experimental approaches and inversion workflows, the processing being accompanied by direct numerical modeling of the wave propagation within the carbonate sample. A point-like pulsed-laser and a piezoelectric transducer are alternatively used as seismic sources and a laser interferometer records the travelling waves reaching the periphery of the carbonate core. Tomographic images of Vp are obtained and analyzed with both sources and compared to an X-ray CT-scan tomography.