New methods for slicing and dicing seismic volumes

G lobal seismic interpretation techniques aim to arrive at fully interpreted seismic volumes. ‘Fully’ in this context, however, is misleading as it gives the impression that we are dealing with an end product and that there is no more interpretation to be carried out. This is not the case. The correlated geologic timelines of these volumes open up new ways to analyse seismic data, thereby increasing our understanding of the depositional history and improving our ability to find stratigraphic traps and to build accurate geologic models. Geologic information in global seismic interpretation techniques can be unlocked through new methods for dicing and slicing seismic volumes. Using HorizonCube, this can be achieved through attributes and a 3D Slider in a workflow that combines 2D and 3D visualization techniques with interactive analysis. Examples of such techniques will be introduced. The HorizonCube consists of a dense set of horizons that are computed from the seismic dip field. The vertical separation between horizons in a HorizonCube varies spatially. This feature is exploited in a new set of attributes called HorizonCube attributes that capture local and global information. Examples are: HorizonCube density and HorizonCube thickness attributes. Both attributes can be highly effective in the interpretation of unconformities, condensed sections and sedimentation rates. For slicing and dicing seismic volumes, we use a 3D Slider in a workflow that combines 2D and 3D visualization techniques with interactive analysis. The workflow enables scanning thousands of auto-tracked horizons rapidly with the objective to identify pairs of horizons corresponding to top and base of depositional features of interest. In the next step, isochron thicknesses or attribute responses are computed and geobodies are extracted.