Seismic Wave Propagation in Composite Elastic Media

It has been known since the time of Biot–Gassman theory (Biot, J Acoust Soc Am 28:168–178, 1956, Gassmann, Naturf Ges Zurich 96:1–24, 1951) that additional seismic waves are predicted by a multicomponent theory. It is shown in this article that if the second or third phase is also an elastic medium then multiple p and s waves are predicted. Futhermore, since viscous dissipation no longer appears as an attenuation mechanism and the media are perfectly elastic, these waves propagate without attenuation. As well, these additional elastic waves contain information about the coupling of the elastic solids at the pore scale. Attempts to model such a medium as a single elastic solid causes this additional information to be misinterpreted. In the limit as the shear modulus of one of the solids tends to zero, it is shown that the equations of motion become identical to the equations of motion for a fluid filled porous medium when the viscosity of the fluid becomes zero. In this limit, an additional dilatational wave is predicted, which moves the fluid though the porous matrix much similar to a heart pumping blood through a body. This allows for a connection with studies which have been done on fluid-filled porous media (Spanos, 2002).