Articles
Keep an eye on your basement! – the 3D version
John Peirce, Dave Caulfield, Bob Charters, Dumitru Ion, Hassan Hassan, and Randy Kolesar
Twenty some years ago Bernard Coulott of Imperial Oil exhorted us to “Keep an eye on your basement!” during a CSEG luncheon talk. In 2004, we presented several wide ranging geological examples of the influence of basement structure on the overlying stratigraphy (Peirce and Griffith, 2004) and emphasized how far…
Multifocusing: A New Method of Multifold Seismic Data Processing
Igor Belfer, Alex Berkovitch, and Kairat Sydykov
Much geophysical research focuses on improving the quality of time imaging by aligning the reflectors based on CMP seismic gathers. Various formulas for moveout correction that consider real data complexity and accordingly, the non-hyperbolic character of a traveltime curve, have been proposed. Researchers attempt to avoid nonlinear stretch on short…
Frequency Enhancement of Seismic Data – a comparative study
Santan Kumar, Kiran Kumari, and Ajoy Biswal
Seismic waves propagating in the subsurface are attenuated. This loss is frequency dependent i.e. higher frequencies are absorbed more rapidly than lower frequencies resulting in a narrow frequency spectrum. Since the seismic trace is a superposition of many overlapping reflections it is often difficult to identify the exact reflection boundaries.…
Integrated approach to identify complex reservoir sand channel/bar system
Ram Kumar Thakur and Frederic Duval
The oil bearing lenticular multilayered reservoir sands in the South Umm Gudair Field is embedded in the thick Ratawi Shale Member. They are sedimented as thin tidal bars anastomosed with distributary and tidal channels deposited under pro-deltaic to delta front environment.
... Fizz and gas reservoir differentiation based on stochastic inversion
Xin-gang Chi and De-hua Han
AVO attributes of gradient and intercept are related to the reservoir properties based on rock physics knowledge. We develop a new rock physics model based inversion method in this study where we apply the Xu-White shaly-sand mixture model and simultaneously invert the reservoir properties of clay content, water saturation, and…
General Mathematical Software Tools in Geophysics
Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab, Jim Cooper and Bary W. Wilson
Over time, Geophysics, like most disciplines and industries have developed a veritable arsenal of powerful software tools to defeat complex modeling and analytical challenges. Whether the task is contouring, groundwater modeling, or GIS, highly capable software exists to help today’s problems. But what about the problems of tomorrow?
... As the science world goes mobile, expect computer technology to follow
Marc Diana
It would be ideal to have a 5,000-square-foot laboratory less than a mile away from you at all times. However, when you’re conducting research in some of the most remote locations on the planet, the amenities of a high-tech lab are an afterthought. Instead, scientists and researchers try and make-do…
What Else Can the Seismic Waveform Tell Us?
Gerhard Pratt
Traditional seismic imaging as widely practiced in the oil and gas industry, conceptually treats the seismic velocity model as if it were a separate entity from the seismic reflectivity image. A whole industry has been constructed around this separation, and for good cause: the velocity model is a very smooth,…
Seismically Guided Fracture Characterization
Robert Godfrey and Ran Bachrach
In the future, there will be greater dependency on producing oil and gas from fractured reservoirs. Characterization and forecasting in fractured reservoirs are two of the most challenging topics in the oil and gas industry. Managing such reservoirs requires construction of representative reservoir models that can handle both fracture and…
Fracture Detection Using 3D Seismic Azimuthal AVO
David Gray
Azimuthal Amplitude Versus Offset is a new seismic method that is gaining popularity amongst those investigating fractured reservoirs. It is also known as AVAZ for Amplitude Versus Angle and aZimuth, AVOA for Amplitude Versus Offset and Azimuth and AzAVO. This paper will use the term AVAZ.
... AVO projected pilot trace for dynamic trim statics
Ye Zheng, Mike Perz and Juefu Wang
P-wave fracture analysis provides a means to extract information about fracture density and orientation from a target reservoir. While successful application of any fracture analysis method requires that the technique be based on a sound theoretical framework, it turns out that careful handling of certain practical issues is also crucially…
The role of amplitude and phase in processing and inversion
Tadeusz Ulrych
The object of seismic exploration is encoded in the data that are acquired on or near the surface of the earth. The goal of decoding these data is, essentially, to find out where and what this object is. Although we record our information in space and time, we always, at…
Technological Change – The Great Enabler of Exploration
Andrew Morrant
One of the more notable trends in computing over the past few decades has been the evolution of technology, as it becomes exponentially more powerful while simultaneously shrinking in size and cost. New innovation has created unparalleled system efficiencies that reduce total cost of ownership. Accordingly, lower-cost IT brings vast…
Isilon Clustered Storage: Speeding Data Acquisition and Analysis for Oil and Gas Companies
No Author Attributed
Anyone close to the seismic industry is aware of the huge volumes of data now routinely recorded, manipulated and stored. Many companies now specialize in advanced data storage technologies, offering unprecedented levels of storage capacity combined with usability. The following promotional article highlights one such company’s offerings.
... Seismic Artifacts – a case study
Niranjan Nanda, Ram Singh and Satinder Chopra
Two structures G and H in an Indian offshore basin were test drilled for Eocene prospects. The G-1 well turned out to be dry, but the H-1 well encountered a thick column of oil in Eocene limestone reservoirs. Following the discovery, a review interpretation of seismic data for detailed reservoir…
Characterization of Reservoir Heterogeneity: An Investigation of the Role of Cross-Well Reflection Data
Brad Bonnell and Chuck Hurich
Cross-well seismic data offers the possibility of meter-scale characterization of lateral variations in reservoir stratigraphy that compliments the vertical information available from well logs. We use simulated cross-well reflection data to investigate the effectiveness of the cross-well technique for mapping the lateral extent of meter-scale permeability barriers and for qualitative…
Seismic characterization of gas hydrates and associated fluid flow on passive and active continental
Andrew Gorman
Methane hydrates are abundant on the two active continental margin regions of offshore New Zealand. The New Zealand crust consists of a rifted fragment of Gondwana that now straddles the Pacific / Australian plate boundary. Along the east coast of the North Island, oceanic Pacific crust subducts under a continental…
Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) of potential field data: airborne gravity data as an example
Hassan H. Hassan and John W. Peirce
In this paper, we introduce a newly developed technique to process potential field data as an alternative to Fourier and wavelet based techniques. This new technique is called the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and was recently developed by Dr. Norden E. Huang at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Huang…
Evidence for Basement Fault Reactivation in Southern Alberta: An Integrated Topography and Airborne Magnetics Approach
Hernan A. Ugalde, Sara L. Underhay, William A. Morris, and Kristi Markham
The influence of basement control on sedimentation through fault reactivation within the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin has been an important matter of research that lead to the Alberta Basement seismic Transects completed by Lithoprobe. However, due to the long seismic line lengths (about 40 km) and long recording times (about…
Litho-Magnetostratigrapy of the Athabasca Oil Sands
W. A. Morris and H. A. Ugalde
Magnetic mineral variations can be sensitive indicators of changes in sediment source, transport mechanism, and depositional environment. Applying a number of different magnetic property measurement techniques it is possible to detect magnetic mineral content, composition and grain size changes. The result is a quantitative expression of lithological changes, or magnetostratigraphy.…
