Skip to content

UQ reorg · Partial saturation: δρ/ρ + Gassmann module (depth step) #8

Description

@mdenolle

Part of the depth step (#4) of the uncertainty arc (epic #2). A δv/v change is not a pure shear-velocity change: in partially saturated ground, filling/draining pore space changes both the shear modulus and the bulk density, so for the shear-dominated coda

δv/v ≈ ½·δμ/μ − ½·δρ/ρ,

and velocity alone cannot separate δV_S/V_S from δρ/ρ. Ignoring the density term biases the inferred velocity change — and the downstream stress — most in hydrological and cryospheric targets, where saturation swings are largest.

Deliverable (full module + demo):

  • A codameter petrophysical module (e.g. uq_density): Gassmann fluid substitution for the modulus + a porosity–saturation relation for the density; maps a saturation change → (δV_S/V_S, δρ/ρ).
  • Extend the depth inversion (uq_depth) to carry δρ/ρ as a second inverted field with its own kernel, reporting how much of the surface δv/v each field explains and propagating the porosity/fluid-modulus/saturation-path priors into the split.
  • Synthetic demo on a truth-known partially saturated site; tests (mass balance, small-perturbation limit, covariance ⪰ velocity-only).

Grounds: framework text already added to the paper (§ Depth) and quarto/theory-processing-depth.qmd (§ "Partial saturation"). Refs: Gassmann (1951); Mavko, Mukerji & Dvorkin (2009); Clements & Denolle (2018); James et al. (2019).

Blocks a trustworthy effective stress (#5) in unsaturated ground.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions