The prediction of small-scale faulting in reservoirs

Faults are an important aspect of many reservoirs, particularly in the way that they control the flow of hydrocarbons during trap-filling or production. Any attempt at characterizing a faulted reservoir must address not only the properties of the reservoir rocks and of the fault surfaces but also the distribution of faults through the rock volume. Ideally, we should be able to characterize the fault population, i.e. how many faults are there of different sizes, what are their geometries, azimuths and locations, and what is their effect on the hydraulic properties of the reservoir?