Investigating the relationship between prior information and seismic resolution in a Bayesian setting.

Modern, one-step inversions build litho-class boundaries into the inversion process by coupling the elastic property inversion with the lithology identification process. This sharpens the result and may permit the identification of very thin units that are not necessarily recognised in a traditional inversion. A further benefit of modern techniques is that the locations of horizons can be updated within the inversion process, again exploiting the interaction between elastic properties and lithology identification in the one-step process. These remarks suggest that it is the interplay between elastic properties and spatial/temporal (geological) information that improves results of modern inversion over the traditional. In effect, resolution is improved by combining separation of litho-classes in elastic properties with separation in a spatio-temporal sense. To a large degree, the geological information is captured in the prior model. In exploration settings, where little is known, the classification process becomes essentially just a partitioning of the elastic property space, and the resolution is similar to that recoverable from a traditional elastic property inversion. However, as more prior information becomes available, it becomes possible to resolve litho-classes that may overlap in elastic properties due to their spatial distribution.