Integrating stratigraphic modelling and seismic interpretation: two practical examples

In the future, the oil industry will have to exploit more and more complex sedimentary basins regarding sedimentology and tectonics. Basin studies will have to integrate more and more advanced and interrelated concepts from different disciplines. Fully integrated basin studies are not yet common practice, but some elements of an integrated workflow are starting to be proposed to the industry. These involve new computer modelling capabilities, such as computer-assisted seismic stratigraphy, 4D kinematic restoration, stratigraphic modelling and petroleum system modelling. Integration of seismic interpretation and sedimentology modelling is one element of this workflow which remains particularly challenging. Stratigraphic modelling is proposed to facilitate this integration; it consists of computerized forward simulation of sedimentary processes at basin scale and geological time-scale. A new simplified stratigraphic modelling method, based on the approximation of the sedimentary history by a succession of sequences during which the sedimentation is supposed to be steady state, will help to invert these stratigraphic models more easily. In particular, the results of seismic interpretation in terms of time-line interpretation and sedimentary environment can now be used as input data to the stratigraphic modelling procedure. The use of seismic data as validation data of the sedimentological model can also be considered, but their relevance depends largely on seismic modelling methods as well as input acoustic parameters.