Elastic Wave Attenuation in a Clay Rich Shale

Spectral ratio methods are used to investigate the attenuation of p-waves in a clay rich shale as a function of confining pressure. A generalised standard linear solid (GSLS) model is then fitted to the data. The attenuation of the fast axis p-wave is found to be relatively indepenent of confining pressure and is in good agreement with the GSLS model.