
Full text loading...
For subsurface commercial ventures or environmental projects that rely on maps of faulted horizons, accurate maps are fundamental. Fault topology provides an ideal tool for analysis of connectivity of fault systems. The data required to undertake the analysis is straightforward to extract from fault maps and can readily be compared to analogue data. In this paper we introduce the concept of fault topology and present existing and new analogue data. To get the most from applying topology the analysis must be coupled with knowledge of the structural history. This includes, the magnitude of faulting, the number of phases of activity and the angle of intersection of successive faulting events. We present a series of case studies that firstly illustrate how topology can capture and define variations in connectivity of fault systems and, secondly, demonstrate how fault topology can be used to identify potential anomalies.