Partha Routh
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| Latest company | ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company |
|---|---|
| Membership | SEG, SPE, and EAGE |
| BSc | Geophysics |
| MSc | Exploration Geophysics |
| PhD | Geophysics |
| BSc university | Indian Institute of Technology, in Kharagpur |
| MSc university | Indian Institute of Technology, in Kharagpur |
| PhD university | University of British Columbia |
Partha S. Routh obtained a B.Sc. with honors (1991) and an M.S. in Exploration Geophysics (1993) from the Indian Institute of Technology, in Kharagpur, and a Ph.D. (1999) from the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, with a focus on electromagnetic inversion problems. After a postdoctoral position at UBC–Geophysical Inversion Facility, he joined Conoco Upstream Technology in Oklahoma.
After a post-doc at the UBC-Geophysical Inversion Facility, he joined ConocoPhillips Upstream Technology where he conducted research on pre-stack seismic inversion and imaging and potential field applications. In 2002, he joined the geophysics faculty at Boise State University with a research focus in near-surface environmental geophysics and geothermal applications. He received tenure in 2006.
He has been with ExxonMobil for the past 13 years mostly involved with full waveform inversion (FWI) research and applications through a variety of roles mostly in research and exploration. Over the years, he gained valuable experience applying FWI and imaging in various basins in the world. Currently, he is the Elastic FWI Technology Coordinator in ExxonMobil Technology Company. His primary interests are in area of inverse problems, and their application to seismic using wave equation as well time-lapse. He is active in FWI for imaging, reservoir characterization and monitoring. Partha has authored and co-authored more than 50 publications and 15patents. He is currently an Associate Editor of Geophysics and past-chair of SEG Research committee and past-president of SEG near surface society.
SEG Reginald Fessenden Award 2024
Partha Routh is recognized with the SEG Reginald Fessenden Award because of his significant technology contribution in the geophysical industry, advancing the development of elastic full-waveform inversion (eFWI) and FWI for time lapse. This has been illustrated in 14 patents and with award-winning papers in SEG journals and conferences. Routh has also been very active and involved with SEG committees regarding FWI and as an ambassador for SEG in this field.
Biography Citation for the Reginald Fessenden Award
by Ramesh Neelamani, Alex Martinez, and John Eastwood
We are pleased that our colleague and dear friend Partha Routh’s contributions to geophysics, particularly in elastic full-wavefield inversion (eFWI) over the past five years, are being recognized with SEG’s Reginald Fessenden Award.
eFWI seeks a detailed subsurface model of high-resolution elastic properties such that synthetic data simulated using the model matches observed seismic data. eFWI is an extraordinarily challenging inverse problem due its ill-posedness and computational complexity. As eFWI matures, it has the potential to revolutionize how seismic data is acquired, processed, and analyzed, enabling the extraction of significantly more quantitative information than traditional imaging methods.
Partha’s work in eFWI intersects seismic imaging, computational sciences, high-performance computing, machine learning, and rock physics. He has demonstrated both technical feasibility and commercial viability of eFWI, pushing the boundaries of what is possible through numerous publications and patents.
Partha's early publications laid the groundwork for acoustic and elastic FWI technology. His works, such as Boonyasiriwat et al. (2009)1 and Routh et al. (20112, 20123), provided critical insights into improving FWI algorithmic efficiency and demonstrated the value of spectral shaping and using simultaneous sources. These publications also highlighted FWI's potential to overcome challenges in 4D seismic, such as survey repeatability.
Partha’s 2017 publication on high-frequency FWI in a marine setting received an Honorable Mention for Best Paper in The Leading Edge. This pioneering work, using Black Sea 3D seismic data, demonstrated that FWI could resolve near-surface issues impacting reservoir imaging and deliver detailed high-frequency subsurface property models such as velocity and acoustic impedance. Predrill predictions using FWI volumes showed excellent agreement with well results.
In 2019, Partha advanced the field with his publication on eFWI in presalt carbonate environments. This study showed that a 3D full anisotropic elastic synthetic model for presalt carbonates could replicate real data challenges, demonstrating that eFWI can overcome noise and illumination issues where conventional methods fail.
Partha coauthored a seminal 3D eFWI paper with Wang et al. in 2021, which, for the first time in the industry, extracted 50 Hz elastic subsurface properties for a clastic West African field directly from shot data. He continued to build on this collaborative work, demonstrating in 2021 and 2022 that eFWI could successfully extract subtle elastic reservoir properties such as VP/VS and acoustic impedance directly from raw streamer data in presalt Brazil environments. These accomplishments represent a significant milestone in geophysics.
Beyond FWI, Partha’s impact extends across various domains. His coauthored paper on surface wave mitigation won the prestigious 2017 Best Paper in Geophysics award. He has coauthored more than 75 peer-reviewed publications and patents in areas including time-lapse seismic, signal processing, inversion and imaging, and electromagnetic imaging. Partha was chosen as the 2022 Honorary SEG Lecturer on FWI, showcasing his teaching and mentoring abilities.
Partha’s publications have been coauthored with more than 80 individuals from academia, governmental labs, students, and industry, highlighting his exceptional collaboration skills. Known for his humility and positive attitude, Partha is sought after for mentoring and collaboration. His rigorous adherence to the scientific method and intellectual curiosity inspires his mentees, contributing to the development of the next generation of geophysicists.
Furthermore, Partha's service to the professional community and his leadership are exemplary. He has served as chair of SEG's Research Committee, held multiple editorial positions, and is a regular reviewer of papers. He has organized more than 10 FWI workshops at SEG annual meetings since 2010 and served as a session chair almost every year. He also served as technical coordinator for the 2023 IMAGE conference’s FWI topic area.
Indeed, Partha’s seminal contributions and dedication to geophysics make him an ideal candidate for the Reginald Fessenden Award.
2023 SEG Distinguished Lecturer
New frontiers in full wave-field inversion: Journey towards elastic FWI and direct use of raw seismic data
In this talk we strive to move closer to the vision of extracting full value from seismic data proposed by Tarantola in 1986 where the goal is inferring elastic properties of the subsurface via full physics driven solution - elastic full-wavefield inversion (eFWI). Over the past two decades, tremendous progress has been made in FWI and its application to many datasets from various geological basins in the world. The progress has mostly focused on acoustic FWI to determine high resolution velocity models of the subsurface to improve imaging either via ray based and/or wave-based imaging algorithms. In geologically complex areas, FWI can capture velocity variations at a scale useful for both imaging and acoustic property inversion, beyond what can be obtained with conventional methods. In a strongly elastic medium, acoustic physics can fall short in explaining the data and introduce errors in the results that can be difficult to quantify. Therefore, to fully explain the amplitudes of seismic data from near to far offsets elastic physics is necessary. The cost of solving eFWI is much more compared to acoustic FWI and for a 3D field scale application it would be not possible without significant advancements and investment in computer hardware and algorithms.
Elastic property inversion typically relies on post-migrated gathers or angle stacks to infer AVO (amplitude versus offset) information. Bandlimited P-impedance (Ip), Vp/Vs are routinely inverted from angle gathers with an estimated wavelet derived from available well. Data required for such inversions depend on several processing steps to preserve primary only reflection. These processing steps enable convolution physics to be applied in a local window where the wavelet is stationary. If processing can mitigate non-primary noise, and elastic contrasts are weak, convolution approach works well. In complex geological setting, such as hard/strong contrasts such as presence of sharp geological boundaries, the presence of non-primary reflection modes in the data (e.g., refractions, converted waves, internal multiples, and diffracted multiples) and varying illumination it can be challenging for processing steps to mitigate such effects completely.
This DL talk is a broad overview of elastic FWI technology mostly aimed at non-experts, with the goal of discussing the benefits and challenges of eFWI and some of the practical insights into integrating with conventional seismic imaging, geological information, rock properties, to extract the maximum value. Figure 1 shows the differences between conventional inversion approach and eFWI. In conventional approach the data are increasingly simplified to conform to convolution physics whereas in eFWI the shot data are directly inverted via anisotropic visco-elastic physics to produce 3D elastic properties of subsurface. Like acoustic FWI, acquisition details are an important consideration for successful application of eFWI. I will also discuss the use of raw data after nav-merge directly in the eFWI framework that requires very minimal to no processing with the potential to accelerate extraction of subsurface information faster. Using examples from exploration and development settings, I will present the value eFWI brings to the upstream decision-making process and discuss future areas of improvements.
Additional Resource
A recording of the lecture is available.[1]
2022 SEG Honorary Lecturer, North America
Full wave-field inversion: Journey towards practical applications
The vision of extracting the full value from seismic data via full-wavefield inversion (FWI) has been around since the inception of the method in the early 1980’s. Over the past two decades, tremendous progress has been made in addressing FWI’s technical challenges and moving the technology closer to realizing its ultimate vision. Key hallmarks of this technology range from rapidly creating significantly improved velocity models for imaging purposes, to obtaining subsurface physical properties directly from seismic data. In geologically complex areas FWI can capture velocity variations at a scale useful for both imaging and property inversion, beyond what can be done with conventional methods. None of these advances would be possible without significant improvements and investment in computer hardware and algorithms.
This HL talk is a broad overview of FWI technology mostly aimed at non-experts, with the goal of discussing the impactful vision of FWI, its early challenges, advancements in methodologies to solve large scale ill-posed inverse problem with practical insights into integrating FWI with conventional approaches to extract maximum value. Figure 1 shows the differences and synergy between conventional seismic data processing and FWI. As expected, the reliability of the results is dependent on the input data, therefore acquisition details are an important consideration for successful application of FWI. Thus, FWI has been a key influence on the advancement of acquisition technology, in particular acquiring long offsets and low frequencies.
The issues associated with FWI are complex and rich. For this talk, I will mostly focus on acoustic physics in an attenuative and anisotropic setting. Addressing these pressing technical challenges requires ideas that are a mix of algorithm innovation, computational advancements, and problem-dependent workflows to move toward the goal of providing high-quality subsurface images at a resolution and scale that provides value to our business. Using examples from exploration and development settings, I will present the value FWI brings to the upstream decision-making process. I will end the talk with a discussion on the choice of physics. In a strongly elastic medium, acoustic physics can fall short in explaining the data and introduce errors in the results. In a future DL talk, I will expand on the elastic aspect of FWI and discuss the opportunity and associated challenges when higher level of physics is introduced.
Additional Resource
A recording of the lecture is available.[2]
SEG Best Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting Award 2012 [3]
Partha S. Routh, Gopal Palacharla, Ivan Chikichev, Spyros Lazaratos received 2012 SEG Best Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting Award for their paper Full wavefield inversion of time-lapse data for improved imaging and reservoir characterization.
References
- ↑ https://www.knowledgette.com/p/new-frontiers-in-full-wave-field-inversion
- ↑ https://doi.org/10.1190/e-learning_20221027
- ↑ Honors and Awards Program 2013 SEG Annual meeting, 4:30–5:30 p.m., Sunday 22 September 2013 George R. Brown Convention Centerm Level 3, George Bush Grand Ballroom, Houston, Texas USA p. 43
External links
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