Seismic Attributes in Your Facies
Seismic Attributes in Your Facies
Seismic Attributes in Your Facies
Hundreds of seismic attributes have been invented, computed by a wide variety of methods, including complex trace analysis, interval statistics, correlation measures, Fourier analysis, time-frequency analysis, wavelet transforms, principal components, and various empirical methods. Regardless of the method, attributes are used like filters to reveal trends or patterns, or combined to predict a seismic facies or a property such as porosity. While qualitative interpretation of individual attributes has dominated attribute analysis to date, the future belongs to quantitative multi-attribute analysis for geologic prediction. Seismic attribute analysis is in transition. Though marked, this transition is but a step in a long evolution (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Timeline outlining the development of seismic attributes from 1950 to the present. Key attributes are shown italicized, and representative papers are shown in diagonals. History From the first practical seismic reflection experiments in 1921 until the early 1960s, seismic reflection data interpretation was largely a matter of mapping event times and converting these to depth to determine subsurface geologic structure. Paper records and analog magnetic tape recording lacked sufficient resolution to go much beyond this. Structural interpretation ruled and stratigraphic interpretation languished.
horizon miscellaneous
Table 1. Methods for computing poststack seismic attributes, with representative attributes. Many attributes, such as dip and azimuth can be computed many ways.
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Figure 2. Isometric display of reflection strength (figure from Anstey, 1972). This display compares well with modern displays and was far superior to its contemporary competition. Unfortunately, a limited publication muted the influence of Ansteys work. Reflection strength cast seismic amplitude in a form free of the distorting influences of reflection polarity and wavelet phase, permitting fairer comparisons. Anstey also invented apparent polarity and differential frequency, and showed interval velocity, frequency, cross-dip2, and stack-coherence attributes. His color technique was costly but greatly improved upon Balchs. His method for displaying seismic attributes has been employed ever since: simultaneously plot the attribute in color and the original seismic data in black variable area. He considers this his most valuable contribution to attribute analysis as it allowed the stratigraphic information of the attribute to be directly related to the structural information of the seismic data. Ansteys reports remain surprisingly fresh and insightful. Unfortunately they also remain inaccessible, as only a handful of copies were made due to the great expense of the early color plots. It was his colleagues, Turhan Taner, Robert Sheriff, and Fulton Koehler, who, inheriting his work upon his departure from Seiscom
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ing force was to automatically determine seismic facies, there also arose the curious idea that attributes might somehow make sense in combination even if they didnt make any sense individually. These efforts failed to provide the geologic insights that seismic interpreters so keenly sought, nor could they prevent the inevitable disillusionment bred of expectations set too high. Doubts grew and enthusiasm waned; by the mid-1980s, seismic attributes had lost their gloss of scientific respectability. Excerpts from the literature
Figure 3. Basic flow chart of seismic pattern recognition (multi-attribute analysis). A set of attributes are fed into a black-box algorithm, which could contain a neural network. The black-box classifies the input data at each data point. If additional information is given, the classification is supervised; otherwise it is unsupervised. The output is typically a prediction of seismic facies or a physical property such as porosity. record this fall from grace. Roy Lindseth (1982, p. 9.15) observed, ... except for amplitude, they have never become very popular, nor are they used extensively in interpretation. The reason for this seems to lie in the fact that most of them cannot be tied directly to geology ... Regarding complex trace attributes, Hatton et al. (1986, p. 25) opined, ... this concept is a little difficult to grasp intuitively ... While these functions do provide alternative and sometimes valuable clues in the interpretation of seismic data, cf. Taner et al. (1979), it is probably fair to say that their usage has not been as widespread as it might have been due to their somewhat esoteric nature. Yilmaz (1987, p. 484) cautiously wrote, The instantaneous frequency may have a high degree of variation, which may be related to stratigraphy. However, it also may be difficult to interpret all this variation. Robertson and Fisher (1988) added, The mix of meaningful and meaningless values is probably the major factor that has frustrated interpreters looking for physical significance in the actual numbers on attribute sections. If the experts didnt know what to make of seismic attributes, is it any wonder that the rest of us were confused? Even as attributes fell into neglect, work continued on new techniques that would restore them to favor. Chief amongst these was 3-D discontinuity. A number of two-dimensional continuity and dip attributes appeared in the 1980s (e.g., Conticini, 1984; Scheuer and Oldenburg, 1988; Vossler, 1989). These met with an indifferent
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reception. But when in the mid-1990s they were three-dimensionalized and continuity was recast as discontinuity, they took the exploration world by storm (e.g., Bahorich and Farmer, 1995). The excitement was reminiscent of that of bright spots, for, like amplitude, discontinuity had clear meaning and enabled interpreters to see something they couldnt easily see before. This success breathed new life into attribute analysis. Other multi-dimensional attributes soon followed, such as parallelism and divergence (e.g., Oliveros and Radovich, 1997; Randen et al., 1998; Randen et al., 2000; Marfurt and Kirlin, 2000; Figures 4 and 5). The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw the introduction of horizon attributes (Dalley et al., 1989), interval attributes (Sonneland et al., 1989; Bahorich and Bridges, 1992), and attributes extracted along a horizon from a volume (Figure 6). Presented as maps and offering superior resolution and computational efficiency, these were quickly and widely adopted and have become the most
(a)
(b)
Figure 4. Reflection parallelism, a seismic stratigraphic attribute. It is quantified as the local degree of variation of reflection dip from the average. Parallel reflections indicate a lower-energy depositional environment, suggestive of shales; nonparallel reflections indicate a higher-energy depositional environment, suggestive of sands. important format for presenting attributes. Interval attributes are usually computed as a statistic in an interval about an interpreted horizon. Seismic waveform mapping is a notable exception, as it based on unsupervised classification. This popular new attribute tracks facies changes (Addy, 1997; Figure 6d). Multi-attribute analysis progressed slowly but surely through the late 1980s and 1990s. Attribute cross-plotting was added to visually relate two or three attributes (e.g., White, 1991). Clustering algorithms were employed to classify sets of attributes as maps or volumes. Since the mid-1990s, neural networks have largely supplanted clustering (e.g., Russell et al., 1997; Addy, 1997; De Groot and Bril, 1999; Walls et al., 1999). The newer supervised classification algorithms automatically integrate seismic and nonseismic information in their solutions, increasing their prediction power.
Figure 5. Reflection divergence, a seismic stratigraphic attribute. It is quantified as the degree to which successive reflections diverge looking downdip. Yellow indicates divergent reflections and blue indicates convergent. (a) Vertical view; (b) 3-D opacity view. The analysis window captured only small-scale divergence, such as that in the channel fill, thereby revealing the extent of the channel. Throughout this time, attributes continued to multiply in chaotic profusion. Brave workers endeavored to bring order to the chaos by classifying attributes according to function (e.g., Brown, 1996; Chen and Sidney, 1997). But could it be that these noble efforts are most valuable precisely because many attributes are not? The geologic meanings of some attributes are so obscure we can only guess at them.3 Other attributes duplicate each other; amplitude attributes are especially redundant (Figure 7). We do not need all the seismic attributes. Do we need any?
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Figure 6. Attribute maps computed for the same horizon. (a) RMS amplitude computed in a 40 ms window about the horizon; (b) instantaneous dip extracted along the horizon; (c) dip computed in the direction of the arrow and extracted along the horizon, so that the seismic data looks like terrain illuminated by light from the top; (d) map of waveform produced by fuzzy clustering with 10 classes, computed in a 40 ms window about the horizon. Attribute maps conveniently present a wide variety of information. Future You may not need seismic attributes today, but you will need them in the future. The future will see more multidimensional attributes with geologic significance and a greater reliance on multi-attribute analysis. These trends are leading to automatic pattern recognition techniques for seismic facies analysis, able to rapidly characterize large volumes of data, or retrieve subtle details hidden in the data. In short, the future will see seismic search engines. So how would our seismic search engine work? The idea is simplicity itself (the devil is truly in the details). A template stores the characteristics that describe the reference turbidite of Richoil #1 as imaged in our seismic data. These characteristics are defined by specific attribute values. These attributes are hidden behind the characteristics: our template describes our reference turbidite as moderately nonparallel and quantifies it as 63%, but we dont care how parallelism is computed as long as it is satisfactory. The template is stored in a template database. Collectively, the templates describe many geologic features, including a number of turbidites. The search engine retrieves our turbidite template from the database and scans the data for patterns that resemble it.
Figure 7. Cross-plots of common amplitude attributes. The simple linear and parabolic relationships illustrate that these attributes all contain the same information. Automated seismic data characterization - based on seismic attributes - will rewrite the rules of seismic data interpretation. Geophysical prophets foresaw the wondrous possibilities. In 1983 Lars Sonneland could write (Sonneland, 1983), Finally, automated interpretation techniques might release the interpreter from tedious parts of the interpretation and thereby contribute to faster turnaround. Going back even farther to 1973, Nigel Anstey boldly wrote (Anstey, 1973a), We are saying, then, that we are entering a new age of seismic prospecting - one that yields a new insight into the geology, one that makes the seismic method far more quantitative, and one which requires a whole new arsenal of seismic interpretation skills. You will have seismic attributes in your facies - and you will like it. Acknowledgements I thank Nigel Anstey for graciously presenting me photocopies of his impossible-to-find classic studies, Seiscom 72 & Seiscom 73, and for his insightful recollections of the early history of seismic attributes. I thank Grant Geophysical for permission to reproduce
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the reflection strength figure from Ansteys 1972 report. I also thank Landmark Graphics Corporation for permission to present the other displays of seismic attributes. References
Addy, S.K., 1997, Attribute analysis in Edwards limestone in Lavaca county, Texas: 67th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 737-740. Anstey, N., 1972, Seiscom 72. (Seiscom Limited internal report) Anstey, N., 1973a, Seiscom 73. (Seiscom Limited internal report) Anstey, N.A., 1973b, The significance of color displays in the direct detection of hydrocarbons: 43rd Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophysics. Bahorich, M.S., and Bridges, S.R., 1992, Seismic sequence attribute map (SSAM): 62nd Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstract, 227-230. Bahorich, M., and Farmer, S., 1995, 3-D seismic discontinuity for faults and stratigraphic features: The coherence cube: 65th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 93-96. Balch, A.H., 1971, Color sonograms a new dimension in seismic data interpretation: Geophysics, 36, 1074-1098. Bodine, J.H., 1986, Waveform analysis with seismic attributes: Oil and Gas J., 84, no. 23, 59-63. Brown, A.R., 1996, Seismic attributes and their classification: The Leading Edge, 15, 1090. Chen, Q., and Sidney, S., 1997, Seismic attribute technology for reservoir forecasting and monitoring: The Leading Edge, 16, no. 5, 445, 447-448, 450. Conticini, F., 1984, Seismic facies quantitative analysis: New tool in stratigraphic interpretation: 54th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 680-682. Dalley, R.M., Gevers, E.C.A., Stampfli, G.M., Davies, D.J., Gastaldi, C.N., Ruijtenberg, P.A., and Vermeer, G.J.O., 1989, Dip and azimuth displays for 3D seismic interpretation: First Break, 7, 86-95. De Groot, P.F.M., 1999, Volume transformation by way of neural network mapping: 61st Mtg., Eur. Assn. Geosci. Eng., Extended Abstracts, 3-37. de Figueiredo, R. J. P., 1982, Pattern recognition approach to exploration, in deFigueiredo, R. J. P., Ed., Concepts and techniques in oil and gas exploration: Soc. Expl. Geophys., 267-286. Dobrin, M.B., 1976, Introduction to geophysical prospecting, 3rd Ed.: McGrawHill, Inc. Hatton, L., Worthington, M.H., and Makin, J., 1986, Seismic data processing: Theory and practice: Blackwell Scientific Publications. Justice, J.H., Hawkins, D.J., Wong, G., 1985, Multidimensional attribute analysis and pattern recognitions for seismic interpretation: Pattern Recognition, 18, 391-407. Lindseth, R.O., 1982, Digital processing of geophysical data: A review: Soc. Expl. Geophys. Marfurt, K.J., and Kirlin, R.L., 2000, 3-D broad-band estimates of reflector dip and amplitude: Geophysics, 65, 304-320. Oliveros, R.B., and Radovich, B.J., 1997, Image-processing display techniques applied to seismic instantaneous attributes on the Gorgon gas field, North West Shelf, Australia: 67th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 2064-2067. Randen, T., Monsen, E., Signer, C., Abrahamsen, A., Hansen, J.O., Ster, T., Schlaf, J., and Sonneland, L., 2000, Three-dimensional texture attributes for seismic data analysis: 70th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 668-671. Randen, T., Reymond, B., Sjulstad, H.I., and Sonneland, L., 1998, New Seismic attributes for automated stratigraphic facies boundary detection: 68th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 628-631. Robertson, J.D., and Nogami, H.H., 1984, Complex seismic trace analysis of thin beds: Geophysics, 49, 344-352.
Robertson, J.D., and Fisher, D.A., 1988, Complex seismic trace attributes: The Leading Edge, 7, no. 6, 22-26. Rummerfield, B.F., 1954, Reflection quality a fourth dimension: Geophysics, 19, 684-694. Scheuer, T.E., and Oldenburg, D.W., 1988, Local phase velocity from complex seismic data: Geophysics, 53, 1503-1511. Sheriff, R.E., and Geldart, L.P., 1989. Exploration seismology volume 1: History, theory, and data acquisition. Cambridge University Press. Sonneland, L., 1983, Computer aided interpretation of seismic data: 53rd Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 546-549. Sonneland, L. Barkved, O., Olsen, M., and Snyder, G., 1989, Application of seismic wavefield attributes in reservoir characterization: 59th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 813-817. Taner, M.T., Koehler, F., and Sheriff, R.E., 1979, Complex seismic trace analysis: Geophysics, 44, 1041-1063. Taner, M.T., and Sheriff, R.E., 1977, Application of amplitude, frequency, and other attributes to stratigraphic and hydrocarbon exploration, in Payton, C.E., Ed., Seismic stratigraphy - Applications to hydrocarbon exploration: Am. Assn. Petr. Geol. Memoir 26, 301-327. Vossler, D.A., 1989, Automatic delineation of lateral facies changes in clastic environments: 59th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 803-804. Walls, J.D., Taner, M.T., Guidish, T., Taylor, G., Dumas, D., and Derzhi, N., 1999: North Sea reservoir characterization using rock physics, seismic attributes, and neural networks; a case history: 69th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts, 1572-1575. White, R.E., 1991, Properties of instantaneous seismic attributes: The Leading Edge, 10, no. 7, 26-32. Yilmaz, ., 1987, Seismic data processing: Soc. Expl. Geophys.
ARTHUR E. BARNES Art Barnes earned a B.Sc. in physics in 1974 from Denison University in Ohio, an M.Sc. in geophysics in 1980 from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, and a Ph.D. in geophysics in 1990 from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Belatedly realizing his mistake in 1995, he took a course in C++ object oriented programming at Ohio University to become employable. Art entered the oil industry in the halcyon days of 1980 when one could get a job by spelling geophysix. He worked on a marine seismic crew and in seismic data processing. In 1986, encouraged by market fundamentals to seek new opportunities, he re-entered academics. He worked in the COCORP deep seismic exploration project at Cornell, becoming an expert in seismic noise. Speculating that the paucity of reflections was the fault of the sedimentary cover, he joined Lithoprobe at Ecole Polytechnique de Montral to work on data from the Canadian shield. During this time, he pursued research in attribute analysis and seismic signal processing, publishing his results in leading journals and misleading journals. In 1995, Art returned to the oil industry as a software engineer. He joined Landmark Graphics in Denver in 1997. He maintains a product for interpretive seismic data processing to which he is adding new attribute functionality. Dont blame him for limitations in other software products. He is a member of the SEG, EAGE, and - last but not least - the CSEG.
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