Exxonmobil Upstream Research Company

Ethan J Nowak

Matthias Imhof

Pavel Dimitrov

William Curry

Fuxian Song

Method for locating fault lines or surfaces in 2-D or 3-D seismic data based on the fact that fault discontinuities in the space domain span a wide range in a local slowness (slope) domain, whereas other dipping events in the space domain data, such as noise, tend to be coherent, and hence will appear focused in the slowness dimension. Therefore, the method comprises decomposing the seismic data () by a transformation to the local slowness domain, preferably using Gaussian slowness period packets as the local slowness or slope decomposition technique, thereby avoiding problems with the data stationary assumption. In the local slowness domain, faults may be identified () using the principle mentioned above, i.e. that faults are represented as a truncation in the space domain data, hence they will appear broadband in the slowness dimension.

Automatic tracking of faults by slope decomposition

A fully automated method for correcting errors in one interpretation () of seismic data based on comparison to at least one other interpretation () of the same subsurface region. The errors may occur in any feature of the seismic data volume, for example a horizon, surface, fault, polyline, fault stick, or geo-body. In some embodiments of the invention, an error may be a hole in a horizon (), and the whole is patched by a piece of a horizon in another interpretation (). In an alternative embodiment of the invention, a single interpretation may be used to repair itself, for example by identifying similarly shaped, adjacent horizons (), and merging them ().

Automated interpretation error correction

Method for the segmentation and classification of seismic or other geophysical data. Curves or surfaces are identified in the geophysical data (), then pairs of the curves or surfaces () are matched up according to a selected measure of shape similarity () such as the Hausdorff distance between members of a pair. The matched curves or surfaces () are used to define geobodies or faults in the geophysical data volume (). The same inventive concept may also be used to warp/align (register) two different data volumes ().

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Cypress, TX, United States of America

Ethan J Nowak