Use of Horizontal Seismic Sections to Identify Subtle Traps

Author(s):  
Alistair R. Brown ◽  
Robert J. Graebner ◽  
C. G. Dahm
Keyword(s):  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. SB5-SB15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt J. Marfurt ◽  
Tiago M. Alves

Seismic attributes are routinely used to accelerate and quantify the interpretation of tectonic features in 3D seismic data. Coherence (or variance) cubes delineate the edges of megablocks and faulted strata, curvature delineates folds and flexures, while spectral components delineate lateral changes in thickness and lithology. Seismic attributes are at their best in extracting subtle and easy to overlook features on high-quality seismic data. However, seismic attributes can also exacerbate otherwise subtle effects such as acquisition footprint and velocity pull-up/push-down, as well as small processing and velocity errors in seismic imaging. As a result, the chance that an interpreter will suffer a pitfall is inversely proportional to his or her experience. Interpreters with a history of making conventional maps from vertical seismic sections will have previously encountered problems associated with acquisition, processing, and imaging. Because they know that attributes are a direct measure of the seismic amplitude data, they are not surprised that such attributes “accurately” represent these familiar errors. Less experienced interpreters may encounter these errors for the first time. Regardless of their level of experience, all interpreters are faced with increasingly larger seismic data volumes in which seismic attributes become valuable tools that aid in mapping and communicating geologic features of interest to their colleagues. In terms of attributes, structural pitfalls fall into two general categories: false structures due to seismic noise and processing errors including velocity pull-up/push-down due to lateral variations in the overburden and errors made in attribute computation by not accounting for structural dip. We evaluate these errors using 3D data volumes and find areas where present-day attributes do not provide the images we want.


1991 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
pp. 223-226
Author(s):  
VIRGIL BARDAN

In this paper the processing of triangularly sampled 2-D seismic data is illustrated by examples of synthetic and field seismic sections.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kangxu Ren ◽  
Junfeng Zhao ◽  
Jian Zhao ◽  
Xilong Sun

Abstract At least three very different oil-water contacts (OWC) encountered in the deepwater, huge anticline, pre-salt carbonate reservoirs of X oilfield, Santos Basin, Brazil. The boundaries identification between different OWC units was very important to help calculating the reserves in place, which was the core factor for the development campaign. Based on analysis of wells pressure interference testing data, and interpretation of tight intervals in boreholes, predicating the pre-salt distribution of igneous rocks, intrusion baked aureoles, the silicification and the high GR carbonate rocks, the viewpoint of boundaries developed between different OWC sub-units in the lower parts of this complex carbonate reservoirs had been better understood. Core samples, logging curves, including conventional logging and other special types such as NMR, UBI and ECS, as well as the multi-parameters inversion seismic data, were adopted to confirm the tight intervals in boreholes and to predicate the possible divided boundaries between wells. In the X oilfield, hundreds of meters pre-salt carbonate reservoir had been confirmed to be laterally connected, i.e., the connected intervals including almost the whole Barra Velha Formation and/or the main parts of the Itapema Formation. However, in the middle and/or the lower sections of pre-salt target layers, the situation changed because there developed many complicated tight bodies, which were formed by intrusive diabase dykes and/or sills and the tight carbonate rocks. Many pre-salt inner-layers diabases in X oilfield had very low porosity and permeability. The tight carbonate rocks mostly developed either during early sedimentary process or by latter intrusion metamorphism and/or silicification. Tight bodies were firstly identified in drilled wells with the help of core samples and logging curves. Then, the continuous boundary were discerned on inversion seismic sections marked by wells. This paper showed the idea of coupling the different OWC units in a deepwater pre-salt carbonate play with complicated tight bodies. With the marking of wells, spatial distributions of tight layers were successfully discerned and predicated on inversion seismic sections.


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 891
Author(s):  
Naveed Ahmad ◽  
Sikandar Khan ◽  
Eisha Fatima Noor ◽  
Zhihui Zou ◽  
Abdullatif Al-Shuhail

The present study interprets the subsurface structure of the Rajian area using seismic sections and the identification of hydrocarbon-bearing zones using petrophysical analysis. The Rajian area lies within the Upper Indus Basin in the southeast (SE) of the Salt Range Potwar Foreland Basin. The marked horizons are identified using formation tops from two vertical wells. Seismic interpretation of the given 2D seismic data reveals that the study area has undergone severe distortion illustrated by thrusts and back thrusts, forming a triangular zone within the subsurface. The final trend of those structures is northwest–southeast (NW–SE), indicating that the area is part of the compressional regime. The zones interpreted by the study of hydrocarbon potential include Sakessar limestone and Khewra sandstone. Due to the unavailability of a petrophysics log within the desired investigation depths, lithology cross-plots were used for the identification of two potential hydrocarbon-bearing zones in one well at depths of 3740–3835 m (zone 1) and 4015–4100 m (zone 2). The results show that zone 2 is almost devoid of hydrocarbons, while zone 1 has an average hydrocarbon saturation of about 11%.


1989 ◽  
Vol 142 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
J.A Chalmers

Seismo-stratigraphic interpretation of seismic sections dating from the mid-1970s has disclosed the existence of four megasequences of sediments, the oldest of which has not previously been reported from West Greenland. The basins containing these sediments developed as a series of coalescing half graben, in which the main site of tectonic activity changed with time. A structural closure of sufficient size to contain interesting quantities of hydrocarbons, given suitable source rocks, reservoir and seal, is identified. The study has shown that the evaluation of the West Greenland Basin during the 1970s was inadequate, and that abandonment of exploration by the petroleum industry may have been premature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
T. R. Akhmedov ◽  
T. Kh. Niyazov

The article is devoted to the elucidation of the nature of the wave field recorded below the supporting-dominant seismic horizon «P» in the Middle Kura depression of Azerbaijan. A brief overview of the work carried out here is given; it is indicated that some geologists and geophysicists of our country, in our opinion, mistakenly assume that the observed wave field below the specified horizon is formed mainly by multiple reflections. Since the introduction of the common depth point method into the practice of seismic exploration, individual areas of the Middle Kura depression in Azerbaijan, including the Yevlakh-Agjabedi trough, have been repeatedly studied with varying degrees of frequency tracking. On the basis of this, a fairly large number of promising structures have been identified and mapped. But the structure of the Mesozoic, in particular the deposits of the Upper Cretaceous, still remains insufficiently studied. The study of the geological structure of the Mesozoic sediments, which are considered promising in terms of oil and gas content, is an urgent geological task; exploration work was carried out in the studied areas of the Middle Kura depression using a complex of geophysical methods at the modern technical and methodological level and new results were obtained. The constructed seismic sections show a dynamically pronounced and well-traceable seismic horizon corresponding to the Mesozoic surface and located deeper than it, relatively weak, short, discontinuous reflective boundaries that characterize the structure within the Mesozoic deposits. The studies carried out on the basis of modeling and velocity analysis made it possible to prove that the wave field in the time interval corresponding to the Mesozoic deposits owes its origin to intermittent single reflections from volcanic-carbonate deposits of the Upper Cretaceous age.


CONVERSAZIONES were held this year on 6 May and 24 June. At the first conversazione twenty-four exhibits and a film were shown. Dr P. E. Kent, F.R.S., and Mr P. J. Walmsley of The British Petroleum Company Limited arranged an exhibit demonstrating the latest progress in the exploration for hydrocarbons in the North Sea. The established gas fields and the recently discovered oil fields were shown on maps together with sections which illustrated their structure. Seismic sections and geological interpretations were exhibited to show the type of information being obtained in the North Sea and the structural complexities which arise. A scale model of one of the semi-submersible drilling outfits used in North Sea exploration was on display together with a sample of British North Sea oil.


Geophysics ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Robertson ◽  
Henry H. Nogami

Displays of complex trace attributes can help to define thin beds in seismic sections. If the wavelet in a section is zero phase, low impedance strata whose thicknesses are of the order of half the peak‐to‐peak period of the dominant seismic energy show up as anomalously high‐amplitude zones on instantaneous amplitude sections. These anomalies result from the well‐known amplitude tuning effect which occurs when reflection coefficients of opposite polarity a half period apart are convolved with a seismic wavelet. As the layers thin to a quarter period of the dominant seismic energy, thinning is revealed by an anomalous increase in instantaneous frequency. This behavior results from the less well‐known but equally important phenomenon of frequency tuning by beds which thin laterally. Instantaneous frequency reaches an anomalously high value when bed thickness is about a quarter period and remains high as the bed continues to thin. In this paper, complex trace analysis is applied to a synthetic model of a wedge and to a set of broadband field data acquired to delineate thin lenses of porous sandstone. The two case studies illustrate that sets of attribute displays can be used to verify the presence and dimensions of thin beds when definition of the beds is not obvious on conventional seismic sections.


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