A New Approach to Signature Analysis in Seismic Interpretation Using an Interactive Workstation

Initial hydrocarbon discoveries normally lead to a succession of wells on the same or similiar seismic trends, sometimes with a succession of dry holes. The problem posed is, given some initial success, to what extent can seismic be used to predict lithology and prevent these occurrences.

Satellite technologists already utilize similar methods to quickly identify similar terrain features using an image ‘bench mark’, and multiple signals. The bench mark for the seismic interpreter is the well, and the multiple signals are the seismic attributes. The tool used to bring these together is the interpretation workstation.

A demonstration of the technique on synthetic data displays good results, dependent on several factors. Future work will be directed at evaluating the method on field data and together with other lithology prediction methods.