UHR3D - a Step Change in Data Resolution - an Equal Step Change in Interpretation Challenges

The top 100m below the seafloor, and typically at high latitudes, with Neogene glacial influence is super complex geology with short lived structure and small-scale facies changes in sedimentology. The practical view, using traditional interpretation approaches is very time consuming, and still yielding errors in metre and decimetre scale. Some Geotech defined ground units of high importance may not be represented as a well-defined seismic reflector. Geo-hazards like gas, peat, channel sands, boulders or bedrock often have strong contrasts and can be isolated and exported as geo-bodies. Neogene ice compacted or pushed mud units are chaotic in appearance but have subtle stiffness changes seen by Geotechnical measurements. High-resolve seismic velocity cubes also see these subtle stiffness changes and is proposed here as a data driven, volume-based approach. In recent work interpreting boulders using sub bottom profiler (SBP) 2D data and diffraction imaging 3D volumes show that two dimensional features like scour-marks is interpreted as a boulder lead (point diffractor) in SBP data. Therefore, we conclude that seismic UHR2D and SBP data used by the marine wind industry may have overrated the presence of boulders and associate risk for marine wind turbine installations.