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| | Abstract | | InSAR monitoring of surface heave during the steam injection of SAGD for bitumen production from oil sands in Canada was investigated for its applicability to the actual field to achieve low cost monitoring. DInSAR was applied to 30 pairs of C-band data from the European satellite of Sentinel-1 and steam injection-related surface displacement could be detected through the effect of stacking to increase S/N in vegetated areas. PSInSAR was also tested for the data obtained in snow seasons. The results showed reasonably continuous displacement of the surface over 18 months indicating the capability of InSAR to monitor surface heave even when surface is covered by snow. Installation of corner reflectors is currently being conducted to distribute persistent scatters for PSInSAR to monitor entire areas of steam injection. The results of DInSAR and PSInSAR also revealed that the initiation of surface heave is right after the commencement of steam injection, and magnitude of the heave has a good correlation with the cumulative amount of injected steam. These behaviors of the surface heave in response to the steam injection would help increase understanding geomechanics of oil sands during SAGD. InSAR can provide value-added solution for surface heave monitoring with both spatially and temporally much higher resolution than the traditional leveling techniques. |
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