arXiv subjects

Biondo Biondi

Publications and source records attributed to Biondo Biondi.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Urban Sensing Using Existing Fiber-Optic Networks

The analysis of urban seismic signals offers valuable insights into urban environments and society. Yet, accurate detection and localization of seismic sources on a city-wide scale with conventional seismographic network is unavailable due to the prohibitive costs of ultra-dense seismic arrays required for imaging high-frequency anthropogenic sources. Here, we leverage existing fiber-optic networks as a distributed acoustic sensing system to accurately locate urban seismic sources and estimate how their intensity varies over time. By repurposing a 50-kilometer telecommunication fiber into an ultra-dense seismic array, we generate spatiotemporal maps of seismic source power (SSP) across San Jose, California. Our approach overcomes the proximity limitations of urban seismic sensing, enabling accurate localization of remote seismic sources generated by urban activities, such as traffic, construction, and school operations. We also show strong correlations between SSP values and environmental noise levels, as well as various persistent urban features, including land use patterns and demographics.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2024

Characterizing Vehicle-Induced Distributed Acoustic Sensing Signals for Accurate Urban Near-Surface Imaging

Continuous seismic monitoring of the near-surface structure is crucial for urban infrastructure safety, aiding in the detection of sinkholes, subsidence, and other seismic hazards. Utilizing existing telecommunication optical fibers as Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) systems offers a cost-effective method for creating dense seismic arrays in urban areas. DAS leverages roadside fiber-optic cables to record vehicle-induced surface waves for near-surface imaging. However, the influence of roadway vehicle characteristics on their induced surface waves and the resulting imaging of near-surface structures is poorly understood. We investigate surface waves generated by vehicles of varying weights and speeds to provide insights into accurate and efficient near-surface characterization. We first classify vehicles into light, mid-weight, and heavy based on the maximum amplitudes of quasi-static DAS records. Vehicles are also classified by their traveling speed using their arrival times at DAS channels. To investigate how vehicle characteristics influence the induced surface waves, we extract phase velocity dispersion and invert the subsurface structure for each vehicle class by retrieving virtual shot gathers (VSGs). Our results reveal that heavy vehicles produce higher signal-to-noise ratio surface waves, and a sevenfold increase in vehicle weight can reduce uncertainties in phase velocity measurements from dispersion spectra by up to 3X. Thus, data from heavy vehicles better constrain structures at greater depths. Additionally, with driving speeds ranging from 5 to 30 meters per second in our study, differences in the dispersion curves due to vehicle speed are less pronounced than those due to vehicle weight. Our results suggest judiciously selecting and processing surface wave signals from certain vehicle types can improve the quality of near-surface imaging in urban environments.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2023

DeepNRMS: Unsupervised Deep Learning for Noise-Robust CO2 Monitoring in Time-Lapse Seismic Images

Monitoring stored CO2 in carbon capture and storage projects is crucial for ensuring safety and effectiveness. We introduce DeepNRMS, a novel noise-robust method that effectively handles time-lapse noise in seismic images. The DeepNRMS leverages unsupervised deep learning to acquire knowledge of time-lapse noise characteristics from pre-injection surveys. By utilizing this learned knowledge, our approach accurately discerns CO2-induced subtle signals from the high-amplitude time-lapse noise, ensuring fidelity in monitoring while reducing costs by enabling sparse acquisition. We evaluate our method using synthetic data and field data acquired in the Aquistore project. In the synthetic experiments, we simulate time-lapse noise by incorporating random near-surface effects in the elastic properties of the subsurface model. We train our neural networks exclusively on pre-injection seismic images and subsequently predict CO2 locations from post-injection seismic images. In the field data analysis from Aquistore, the images from pre-injection surveys are utilized to train the neural networks with the characteristics of time-lapse noise, followed by identifying CO2 plumes within two post-injection surveys. The outcomes demonstrate the improved accuracy achieved by the DeepNRMS, effectively addressing the strong time-lapse noise.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2023

Spatial Deep Deconvolution U-Net for Traffic Analyses with Distributed Acoustic Sensing

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) that transforms city-wide fiber-optic cables into a large-scale strain sensing array has shown the potential to revolutionize urban traffic monitoring by providing a fine-grained, scalable, and low-maintenance monitoring solution. However, the real-world application of DAS is hindered by challenges such as noise contamination and interference among closely traveling cars. In response, we introduce a self-supervised U-Net model that can suppress background noise and compress car-induced DAS signals into high-resolution pulses through spatial deconvolution. Our work extends recent research by introducing three key advancements. Firstly, we perform a comprehensive resolution analysis of DAS-recorded traffic signals, laying a theoretical foundation for our approach. Secondly, we incorporate space-domain vehicle wavelets into our U-Net model, enabling consistent high-resolution outputs regardless of vehicle speed variations. Finally, we employ L-2 norm regularization in the loss function, enhancing our model's sensitivity to weaker signals from vehicles in remote traffic lanes. We evaluate the effectiveness and robustness of our method through field recordings under different traffic conditions and various driving speeds. Our results show that our method can enhance the spatial-temporal resolution and better resolve closely traveling cars. The spatial deconvolution U-Net model also enables the characterization of large-size vehicles to identify axle numbers and estimate the vehicle length. Monitoring large-size vehicles also benefits imaging deep earth by leveraging the surface waves induced by the dynamic vehicle-road interaction.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2023

Source footprint elimination in full-waveform inversion by model extension: Application to elastic guided waves recorded by distributed acoustic sensing in unconventional reservoir

Source footprints represent an inherent problem to full-waveform inversion (FWI). They are caused by the high data sensitivity to the model parameters in the vicinity of the seismic sources and can be exacerbated by source-related errors in the modeling operator. We propose a simple, effective, and efficient method to remove source footprints in FWI when sources are located near or inside the volume of interest while robustly updating the model in their vicinity. The method uses illumination redundancy and extends the model along sources. Each source updates one component of the extended model, and a regularization term ensures that these components are mutually consistent, except for their respective footprints. We illustrate the effectiveness of our method on the elastic inversion of synthetic guided waves. We show its robustness in the presence of source-related errors and its superiority over other well-known approaches, such as illumination compensation by inverse pseudo-Hessian and gradient preconditioning. We apply the method to a field distributed acoustic sensing dataset with elastic guided waves generated by perforation shots in an unconventional shale reservoir. The method is able to retrieve localized reservoir anomalies with higher elastic velocities, indicating possible lower pore pressure or tighter shale regions.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2023

TelecomTM: A Fine-Grained and Ubiquitous Traffic Monitoring System Using Pre-Existing Telecommunication Fiber-Optic Cables as Sensors

We introduce the TelecomTM system that uses pre-existing telecommunication fiber-optic cables as virtual strain sensors to sense vehicle-induced ground vibrations for fine-grained and ubiquitous traffic monitoring and characterization. Here we call it a virtual sensor because it is a software-based representation of a physical sensor. Due to the extensively installed telecommunication fiber-optic cables at the roadside, our system using redundant dark fibers enables to monitor traffic at low cost with low maintenance. Many existing traffic monitoring approaches use cameras, piezoelectric sensors, and smartphones, but they are limited due to privacy concerns and/or deployment requirements. Previous studies attempted to use telecommunication cables for traffic monitoring, but they were only exploratory and limited to simple tasks at a coarse granularity, e.g., vehicle detection, due to their hardware constraints and real-world challenges. In particular, those challenges are 1) unknown and heterogeneous properties of virtual sensors and 2) large and complex noise conditions. To this end, our TelecomTM system first characterizes the geographic location and analyzes the signal pattern of each virtual sensor through driving tests. We then develop a spatial-domain Bayesian filtering and smoothing algorithm to detect, track, and characterize each vehicle. Our approach uses the spatial dependency of multiple virtual sensors and Newton's laws of motion to combine the distributed sensor data to reduce uncertainties in vehicle detection and tracking. In our real-world evaluation on a two-way traffic road with 1120 virtual sensors, TelecomTM achieved 90.18% vehicle detection accuracy, 27$\times$ and 5$\times$ error reduction for vehicle position and speed tracking compared to a baseline method, and $\pm$3.92% and $\pm$11.98% percent error for vehicle wheelbase and weight estimation, respectively.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2023

Moment tensor inversion of perforation shots using distributed acoustic sensing

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) fibers have enabled various geophysical applications in unconventional reservoirs. Combined with perforation shots, a DAS fiber can record valuable guided waves that propagate in the reservoir formation and carry information about its properties. However, the representation of perforation shots as seismic sources, needed to conduct quantitative analysis, remains unknown. We model such sources using a superposition of three mechanisms for which we derive the moment tensor representation. Using field DAS data recorded in the same well where the perforations are located, we establish a workflow to invert the resolvable components of the total moment tensor for 100 different perforation shots. By scrutinizing the inversion results, we conjecture that the moment tensor can indicate how effectively a perforation shot creates micro-cracks in the surrounding rock. Furthermore, our inverted moment tensors form the basis for a subsequent elastic full-waveform inversion.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2022

Target-oriented elastic full-waveform inversion through extended image-space redatuming

Elastic full-waveform inversion (FWI) when successfully applied can provide accurate and high-resolution subsurface parameters. However, its high computational cost prevents the application of this method to large-scale field-data scenarios. To mitigate this limitation, we propose a target-oriented elastic FWI methodology based on a redatuming step that relies upon an extended least-squared migration process. In our approach, the surface-reflection data can be attributed to a given subsurface portion when mapped into the image space. This process allows us to reconstruct reflection data generated by a target area and recorded with a virtual acquisition geometry positioned directly above it. The redatuming step enables the application of an elastic FWI method within the target portion only. The entire workflow drastically diminishes the overall cost of the surface-data inversion and allows the retrieval of accurate elastic parameters of the area of interest. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a synthetic case based on the well-known Marmousi2 model and on a 3D ocean-bottom-node (OBN) pressure data recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. We first discuss the fundamental aspects of the methodology and apply the proposed workflow to the synthetic test case. We also employ the methodology on the field-data scenario and show its efficacy at correctly retrieving the elastic parameters and rock-physical properties of a gas-bearing sand reservoir positioned in proximity of a salt-dome flank.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2022

Full waveform inversion by model extension: practical applications

Producing reliable acoustic subsurface velocity models still remains the main bottleneck of the oil and gas industry's traditional imaging sequence. In complex geological settings, the output of conventional ray-based or wave-equation-based tomographic methods may not be accurate enough for full waveform inversion (FWI) to converge to a geologically satisfactory Earth model. We create a new method referred to as full waveform inversion by model extension (FWIME) in which a wave-equation migration velocity analysis (WEMVA) technique is efficiently paired with a modified version of FWI. We show that our method is more powerful than applying WEMVA and FWI sequentially, and that it is able to converge to accurate solutions without the use of a good initial guess or low-frequency energy. We demonstrate FWIME's potential on five realistic and challenging numerical examples that simulate complex geological scenarios often encountered in hydrocarbon exploration. We guide the reader step by step throughout the optimization process. We show that our method can simultaneously invert all wave types with the same simple mechanism and without the need for a user-intensive hyper-parameter tuning process. In an online repository, we provide a fully-reproducible open-source software solution implemented with general-purpose graphics processing units (GPU) and with a user-friendly Python interface.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2022

Full waveform inversion by model extension: theory, design and optimization

We describe a new method, full waveform inversion by model extension (FWIME) that recovers accurate acoustic subsurface velocity models from seismic data, when conventional methods fail. We leverage the advantageous convergence properties of wave-equation migration velocity analysis (WEMVA) with the accuracy and high-resolution nature of acoustic full waveform inversion (FWI) by combining them into a robust mathematically-consistent workflow with minimal need for user inputs. The novelty of FWIME resides in the design of a new cost function using the variable projection method, and a novel optimization strategy to combine the two techniques, making our approach more efficient and powerful than applying them sequentially. We observe that FWIME mitigates the need for accurate initial models and low-frequency long-offset data, which can be challenging to acquire. We generate three cycle-skipped 2D synthetic datasets, each containing only one type of wave (transmitted, reflected, refracted), and we analyze how FWIME successfully recovers accurate solutions with the same procedure for all three cases. In a second paper, we apply FWIME to challenging realistic examples where we simultaneously invert all wave modes.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2022

Vibration-Based Bridge Health Monitoring using Telecommunication Cables

Bridge Health Monitoring (BHM) enables early damage detection of bridges and is thus critical for avoiding more severe damages that might result in major financial and human losses. However, conventional BHM systems require dedicated sensors on bridges, which is costly to install and maintain and hard to scale up. To overcome this challenge, we introduce a new system that uses existing telecommunication cables for Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) to collect bridge dynamic strain responses. In addition, we develop a two-module physics-guided system identification method to extract bridge damage-sensitive information (e.g., natural frequencies and mode shapes) from noisy DAS data by constraining strain and displacement mode shapes by bridge dynamics. This approach does not require installation and maintenance of dedicated sensors on bridges. We evaluate our system with field experiments on a concrete bridge with fiber cable running in a conduit under the deck. Our system successfully identified modal frequencies and reconstructed meter-scale mode shapes.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2022

Automatic Interpretative Image-Focusing Analysis

The focusing of a seismic image is directly linked to the accuracy of the velocity model. Therefore, a critical step in a seismic imaging workflow is to perform a focusing analysis on a seismic image to determine velocity errors. While the offset/aperture-angle axis is frequently used for focusing analysis, the physical (i.e., midpoint) axes of seismic images tend to be ignored as focusing analysis of geological structures is highly interpretative and difficult to automate. We have developed an automatic data-driven approach using convolutional neural networks to automate image-focusing analysis. Using focused and unfocused geological faults, we show that our method can make use of both spatial and offset/angle focusing information to robustly estimate velocity errors within seismic images. We demonstrate that our method correctly estimates velocity errors from a 2D Gulf of Mexico limited-aperture image where a traditional semblance-based approach fails. We also show that our method has the added benefit of improving the interpretation of faults within the image.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2021

Integrating Deep Neural Networks with Full-waveform Inversion: Reparametrization, Regularization, and Uncertainty Quantification

Full-waveform inversion (FWI) is an accurate imaging approach for modeling velocity structure by minimizing the misfit between recorded and predicted seismic waveforms. However, the strong non-linearity of FWI resulting from fitting oscillatory waveforms can trap the optimization in local minima. We propose a neural-network-based full waveform inversion method (NNFWI) that integrates deep neural networks with FWI by representing the velocity model with a generative neural network. Neural networks can naturally introduce spatial correlations as regularization to the generated velocity model, which suppresses noise in the gradients and mitigates local minima. The velocity model generated by neural networks is input to the same partial differential equation (PDE) solvers used in conventional FWI. The gradients of both the neural networks and PDEs are calculated using automatic differentiation, which back-propagates gradients through the acoustic PDEs and neural network layers to update the weights of the generative neural network. Experiments on 1D velocity models, the Marmousi model, and the 2004 BP model demonstrate that NNFWI can mitigate local minima, especially for imaging high-contrast features like salt bodies, and significantly improves the inversion in the presence of noise. Adding dropout layers to the neural network model also allows analyzing the uncertainty of the inversion results through Monte Carlo dropout. NNFWI opens a new pathway to combine deep learning and FWI for exploiting both the characteristics of deep neural networks and the high accuracy of PDE solvers. Because NNFWI does not require extra training data and optimization loops, it provides an attractive and straightforward alternative to conventional FWI.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2020

Low-magnitude Seismicity with a Downhole Distributed Acoustic Sensing Array -- examples from the FORGE Geothermal Experiment

We show the capabilities of a downhole Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) array in detecting, locating and characterizing low-magnitude earthquakes occurring in the vicinity of the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) site in Utah. 10.5 days of continuous data were acquired in a monitoring well at the FORGE geothermal site during the initial stimulation of an Enhanced Geothermal System in April-May 2019. Earthquake activity beneath Mineral Mountains, Utah also occurred within 10 km of the FORGE monitoring well. During the experiment, four events from those areas were cataloged by the University of Utah Seismograph Stations. Our processing of DAS data, including template matching, finds 82 earthquakes during that period, of which 16 are visible on the regional network. The magnitude of completeness obtained by DAS processing is better by at least M=0.5 than the dense surface array around the FORGE site. While a single vertical DAS array is limited in terms of event location due to its azimuthal ambiguity, multiple DAS wells or a combination of a downhole array with surface stations or near-surface horizontal DAS could jointly resolve locations. All detected events probably originated from the two active source areas and can be clustered into several distinct families.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2020

Near-surface Characterization Using a Roadside Distributed Acoustic Sensing Array

Thanks to the broadband nature of the Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) measurement, a roadside section of the Stanford DAS-2 array can record seismic signals from various sources. For example, it measures the earth's quasi-static distortion caused by the weight of cars (<0.8 Hz), and Rayleigh waves induced by earthquakes (<3 Hz) and by dynamic car-road interactions (3-20 Hz). We directly utilize the excited surface waves for shallow shear-wave velocity inversion. Rayleigh waves induced by passing cars have a consistent fundamental mode and a noisier first mode. By stacking dispersion images of 33 passing cars, we obtain stable dispersion images. The frequency range of the fundamental mode can be extended by adding the low-frequency earthquake-induced Rayleigh waves. Thanks to the extended frequency range, we can achieve better depth coverage and resolution for shear-wave velocity inversion. In order to assure clear separation from Love waves and aligning apparent velocity with phase velocity, we choose an earthquake that is approximately in line with the array. The inverted models match those obtained by a conventional geophone survey performed by a geotechnical service company contracted by Stanford University using active sources from the surface until about 50 meters. In order to automate the Vs inversion process, we introduce a new objective function that avoids manual dispersion curve picking. We construct a 2-D Vs profile by performing independent 1-D inversions at multiple locations along the fiber. From the low-frequency quasi-static distortion recordings, we invert for a single Poisson's ratio at each location along the fiber. We observe spatial heterogeneity of both Vs and Poisson's ratio profiles. Our approach is dramatically cheaper than ambient field interferometry and reliable estimates can be obtained more frequently as no lengthy cross-correlations are required.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2020

City-scale dark fiber DAS measurements of infrastructure use during the COVID-19 pandemic

Throughout the recent COVID-19 pandemic when government officials around the world ordered citizens to quarantine inside their homes, real-time measurements about the use of roads, hospitals, grocery stores, and other public infrastructure became vital to accurately forecast viral infection rates and inform future government decisions. Although mobile phone locations provide some information about community-level activity, dense distributed geophysical sensing of ground motions across a city are more complete and also natively anonymous. In this paper, we demonstrate how fiber-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) connected to a telecommunication cable beneath Palo Alto, CA captured seismic and geodetic signals produced by vehicles during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and subsequent quarantine. We utilize DAS strain measurements of roadbed deformation caused by local cars and trucks in an automatic template matching detection algorithm to count the number of vehicles traveling per day over a two-month period around the timing of the San Francisco Bay Area shelter-in-place order. Using a segment of the optical fiber near a major grocery store on Sand Hill Road we find a 50% decrease in vehicle count immediately following the order, but data from near Stanford Hospital showed a far more subtle change due to on-going hospital activities. We compare the information derived from DAS measurements to other quarantine response metrics and find a strong correlation with the relative changes reported by Google and Apple using mobile phone data.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2019

Approximate Bayesian inference of seismic velocity and pore pressure uncertainty with basin modeling, rock physics and imaging constraints

We present a methodology for quantifying seismic velocity and pore pressure uncertainty that incorporates information regarding the geological history of a basin, rock physics, well log, drilling and seismic data. In particular, our approach relies on linking velocity models to the basin modeling outputs of porosity, mineral volume fractions and pore pressure through rock physics models. We account for geological uncertainty by defining prior probability distributions on uncertain parameters and performing Monte Carlo basin simulations. We perform probabilistic calibration of the basin model outputs by defining data likelihood distributions to represent well data uncertainty. Rock physics modeling transforms the basin modeling outputs to give us multiple velocity realizations used to perform multiple depth migrations. We present an approximate Bayesian inference framework which uses migration velocity analysis in conjunction with well data for updating velocity and basin modeling uncertainty. We apply our methodology in 2D to a real field case from Gulf of Mexico and demonstrate that our methodology allows building a geologic and physical model space for velocity and pore pressure prediction with reduced uncertainty.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2014

Improved depth imaging by constrained full-waveform inversion

We propose a formulation of full-wavefield inversion (FWI) as a constrained optimization problem, and describe a computationally efficient technique for solving constrained full-wavefield inversion (CFWI). The technique is based on using a total-variation regularization method, with the regularization weighted in favor of constraining deeper subsurface model sections. The method helps to promote "edge-preserving" blocky model inversion where fitting the seismic data alone fails to adequately constrain the model. The method is demonstrated on synthetic datasets with added noise, and is shown to enhance the sharpness of the inverted model and correctly reposition mispositioned reflectors by better constraining the velocity model at depth.

physics.geo-ph↗