The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 12, 2008
Filed:
Sep. 17, 2003
Chul-sung Kim, Houston, TX (US);
Dominique G. Gillard, Houston, TX (US);
James E. Holl, Houston, TX (US);
Mark Dobin, The Woodlands, TX (US);
Thomas A. Hauge, Houston, TX (US);
Chul-Sung Kim, Houston, TX (US);
Dominique G. Gillard, Houston, TX (US);
James E. Holl, Houston, TX (US);
Mark Dobin, The Woodlands, TX (US);
Thomas A. Hauge, Houston, TX (US);
ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co., Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
A method to extract fault surfaces from seismic data () is disclosed. The method comprises: (a) generating at least two fault sticks () from the same fault from at least two slices of the seismic data wherein each slice comprises at least one fault stick from the same fault, (b) constructing an initial three-dimensional fault surface () containing the fault sticks, and (c) reconstructing the initial fault surface () using a deformable surface model to fit discontinuity or coherency information in the seismic data in an iterative process. Techniques are disclosed for constructing the initial fault surface from interpreter-provided fault nodes, and for performing the deformable surface iteration by defining an energy function for the fault surface and then minimizing the surface energy.