The Rock Physics Handbook addresses the relationships between geophysical observations and the underlying physical properties of rocks. It distills a vast quantity of background theory and laboratory results into a series of concise chapters that provide practical solutions to problems in geophysical data interpretation. This expanded second edition presents major new chapters on statistical rock physics and velocity-porosity-clay models for clastic sediments. Other new and expanded topics include anisotropic seismic signatures, borehole waves, models for fractured media, poroelastic models, and attenuation models. This new edition also provides an enhanced set of appendices with key empirical results, data tables, and an atlas of reservoir rock properties – extended to include carbonates, clays, gas hydrates, and heavy oils. Supported by a website hosting MATLAB routines for implementing the various rock physics formulas, this book is a vital resource for advanced students and university faculty, as well as petroleum industry geophysicists and engineers.

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The magnitude of the grain‐scale local flow effect on velocity dispersion in saturated rocks is quantified, by estimating the high‐frequency unrelaxed shear and bulk frame moduli, which are then combined with the Biot formulation to predict total dispersion. The method is relatively independent of assumptions about idealized pore geometries and unknown parameters such as pore aspect ratios. The local flow effect depends on the heterogeneity of pore stiffness, in particular the presence of compliant cracks and grain contacts; the pressure dependence of the dry rock properties is shown to contain the essential information about the distribution of pore stiffnesses needed to estimate the high‐frequency saturated behavior. To first order, the unrelaxed wet frame compressibility at any given pressure is shown to be approximately the dry frame compressibility at very high pressure; second order corrections add the additional compressibility gained by replacing an amount of mineral equal to the compliant pore volume with fluid. The method predicts that the difference between relaxed and unrelaxed shear compliance is simply proportional to that in bulk. The results for total dispersion (local flow plus Biot) explain quite well the measured P- and S-wave dispersion for a variety of saturated rocks.

Quantitative Seismic Interpretation demonstrates how rock physics can be applied to predict reservoir parameters, such as lithologies and pore fluids, from seismically derived attributes. The authors provide an integrated methodology and practical tools for quantitative interpretation, uncertainty assessment, and characterization of subsurface reservoirs using well-log and seismic data. They illustrate the advantages of these new methodologies, while providing advice about limitations of the methods and traditional pitfalls. This book is aimed at graduate students, academics and industry professionals working in the areas of petroleum geoscience and exploration seismology. It will also interest environmental geophysicists seeking a quantitative subsurface characterization from shallow seismic data. The book includes problem sets and a case-study, for which seismic and well-log data, and Matlab codes are provided on a website (http://www.cambridge.org/9780521816014). These resources will allow readers to gain a hands-on understanding of the methodologies.

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