Complex Fault Network Generation Using a Fused Hierarchy

Fault network modeling of complexly faulted structures - those containing hundreds, if not thousands, of faults - can be an extremely difficult and time-consuming process. A variety of methods exist to create the appropriate relationships between the faults, such as truncations, crossing, or offsets due to younger episodes of faulting, but each of these has limitations which make working in the multi-hundred fault areas unwieldy. The fused fault block technique removes the limitations of previous fault modeling techniques and provides a robust, repeatable fault network builder. This new technique expands on the concept of a binary fault tree, but allows compound truncations that are impossible with a strict binary tree approach. The fault network is the framework for subsequent modeling - stratigraphic, facies, or petrophysical - and can be used to generate a grid suitable for reservoir simulation.