AccScience Publishing / JSE / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/JSE026290138
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Seismic elastic inversion based on multi-frequency-band parallel TransUNet and transfer learning with SHAP analysis

Shikai Jian1,2,3,4 Ganglin Lei1,2,3,4 Haonan Tian1,2,3,4 Yang Tan1,2,3,4 Linlin Huang1,2,3,4 Yukun Gong1,2,3,4 Xiangyu Han5 Pu Wang5* Jingkun Sui6
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1 Petroleum Exploration and Development Research Institute, PetroChina Tarim Oilfield Company, Korla, Xinjiang, China
2 Research and Development Center for Ultra-Deep Complex Reservoir Exploration and Development, China National Petroleum Corporation, Korla, Xinjiang, China
3 Engineering Research Center for Ultra-Deep Complex Reservoir Exploration and Development, Korla, Xinjiang, China
4 Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Ultra-Deep Oil and Gas, Korla, Xinjiang, China
5 Department of Applied Geophysics, School of Geosciences and Info-Physics, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China
6 Department of Geophysics, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina, Beijing, China
Received: 13 July 2026 | Revised: 26 July 2026 | Accepted: 4 August 2026 | Published online: 20 August 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

In pre-stack seismic inversion, accurate prediction of elastic parameters, such as P- and S-wave velocities, is crucial for reservoir characterization, including fluid identification and lithology discrimination. In recent years, deep learning-based reservoir parameter prediction has been widely applied. However, deep neural networks are usually regarded as black boxes with limited physical interpretability, and it remains challenging to characterize the mapping relationship between seismic data and rock elasticity. In addition, the lack of S-wave velocity (Vs) samples in field well-logging data limits the training accuracy and reliability of deep learning models. To address these problems, we propose a multi-frequency-band parallel Transformer U-Net (TransUNet) inversion framework with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis. First, SHAP analysis is introduced to clarify the effects of seismic data across different frequency bands on rock elastic parameters, indicating the necessity of frequency decomposition for multi-parameter prediction. Then, a multi-frequency-band parallel TransUNet architecture is developed, in which simultaneous multi-trace input is used to account for lateral continuity in inversion, and the global receptive field of the Transformer is incorporated to further improve inversion resolution and accuracy. Finally, to handle the shortage of S-wave velocity samples, a stepwise transfer learning strategy is adopted. A large number of P-wave velocity and density samples are first used to optimize the parameters of the backbone network. Subsequently, with the backbone network frozen, a small number of S-wave velocity samples are used to fine-tune the output module, thereby enabling effective seismic S-wave velocity inversion. This study investigates the mapping relationship between frequency-decomposed seismic data and multiple reservoir elastic parameters and provides a deep learning-based inversion strategy for reservoir elastic parameters under limited S-wave velocity data. The proposed method can contribute to the detailed characterization of complex reservoirs.

Keywords
Seismic inversion
Deep learning
Elastic parameters
Reservoir prediction
Funding
This work was supported by the Opening Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Deep Oil and Gas (Grant No. SKLDOG2024-KFYB-08), the Youth Science and Technology Special Programme of CNPC (Grant No. 2024DQ03013), the “TianChi Excellence” Programme (Grant No. TC2023101), and the Program of China National Petroleum Corporation (Grant No. 2023ZZ14YJ05).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Journal of Seismic Exploration, Print ISSN: 0963-0651, Published by AccScience Publishing