Microtremor analysis over carbonates with and without oil

During the last few years, the spectra of microtremors have been proposed as a possible tool for detecting hydrocarbon reservoirs (Lambert et al., 2009), although criticisms were raised on both theoretical aspects (Broadhead, 2010) and experimental evidence (Hanssen and Bussat, 2008; Ali et al., 2010). In this paper, we analyse two different sets of passive seismic data acquired in areas of outcropping carbonate rocks, one in Italy and one in Saudi Arabia. The second area is located over a semi-depleted oil reservoir, which still could be produced by enhanced oil recovery techniques. In the first area, instead, there is no oil at all. We compare some signals features in the two cases to check the possibility of using microtremors as a diagnostic tool for detecting hydrocarbons.