A New Perspective on Seismic Resolution — Two North Sea Examples

Usual questions geoscientists may be asked include: Where is the sand, how thick is it and what is its uncertainty, and could there be a completely different model to explain similar seismic responses? Answering such questions requires proper understanding of seismic resolution. However, people may rely on simplified guidelines that depend on dominant wavelength (e.g., Widess criterion). As these criteria fail to account for the general complexity of a seismic trace, and blur the line between “resolution” and “detection”, they often yield unsatisfactory answers to decisionmakers’ questions. To overcome these challenges, we present a novel, simple, and fast approach to assessing seismic resolution that is flexible in any field or geological setting: An ensemble-based forward modeller that rapidly assesses and visualizes the solution space dependent upon a quantified definition of geological noise. As a stochastic process, the method is readily scalable to multidimensional parameter spaces. We then apply the method to the Statfjord field and another North Sea field. The results validate the method as an applicable and flexible tool, enabling us to better communicate uncertainties using a definition of seismic resolution that is not general, but target-specific.