An efficient GPU implementation for locating micro-seismic sources using 3D elastic wave time-reversal imaging

Locating micro-seismic events is of utmost importance in seismic exploration, especially when searching for unconventional oil and gas resources. The arrival-time-difference approach is the dominant source location method currently used in the field of micro-seismic source location. However, micro-seismic events can be generated by any arbitrary rock movement and are often accompanied by interference noise. Recordings show characteristics of complicated wavelets and low signal-to-noise ratios. Under such conditions, conventional triangulation methods may have difficulty producing reliable locations; time-reversal imaging micro-seismic event location techniques are more promising. Locating micro-seismic events must be performed on-site for real-time monitoring of hydraulic fracturing. Introducing wave equation imaging techniques when locating micro-seismic events will increase the computation time, thus complicating real-time site monitoring. Therefore, the use of graphics processing unit (GPU) devices to accelerate time-reversal imaging micro-seismic event location technology becomes imperative. Three-dimensional synthetic data examples have demonstrated that the GPU-based time-reversal imaging micro-seismic event location method is typically 18 times faster than the central processing unit (CPU)-based implementation. The performance boost afforded by the GPU architecture allows us to locate micro-seismic events in 3D at a lower hardware cost and in less time than has been previously possible.