Chevron U.s.a. Inc.

Donald Arthur Medwedeff

Huafeng Liu

Stan Nicolas Patrice Jayr

Peter J Lovely

A geometric method is described for 3D structural restoration of a subsurface model including receiving data representative of a subsurface volume of interest including one or more chronohorizons and the geometry and topology of any faults of relevance; developing a fault framework model of the subsurface volume of interest; selecting a horizon, the deposition of which represents the geologic time to which the structural model should be restored; developing coordinate transformation constrained by a single datum horizon and, optionally, additional geologic constraints; applying the 3D transformation to all geologic features below and, optionally, above the datum surface; and scaling the vertical coordinates to accurately relate vertical and horizontal dimensions. The method may be executed by a computer system.

System and method for 3D restoration of complex subsurface models

A method is described for predicting fault seal based on a digital seismic image including defining a fault coordinate system locally parallel and perpendicular to the at least one fault surface; extracting seismic amplitudes from a sub-volume surrounding and containing the at least one fault surface and mapping the seismic amplitudes in the fault coordinate system; performing trace fitting of the seismic amplitudes along directions locally perpendicular to the fault surface to separate the fault seismic signal from other seismic energy; comparing the fault seismic signal derived from trace fitting to at least one of natural analogs and synthetic models of seismic response to generate a predicted fault seal; and identify geologic features based on the predicted fault seal. The method may be executed by a computer system.

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Donald Arthur Medwedeff