SEISMIC CHARACTER MAPPING OVER RESERVOIR INTERVALS

This paper presents some results from an investigation into the utility of pattern recognition methods in seismic interpretation. The seismic instantaneous attributes of amplitude, phase and frequency provide a way of quantifying the character of a simple reflection. Measures of character can be developed from cross‐plots and cluster analysis of these attributes. It is demonstrated that such seismic character can produce better‐defined maps than a single attribute. These procedures can be extended to attributes derived from seismic trace segments, such as trace energy and centre frequency, and to multitrace attributes, but more effort is then needed to analyse the attributes and search out useful ones. An introduction is given to projection pursuit which has proved a useful exploratory tool for the anlysis of attribute relationships. It is important to stress that pattern recognition techniques simply help bring relationships and patterns in the data to the attention of the interpreter and the most persistent problem in applying these techniques is the evaluation of potentially interesting patterns. The decision on what use can be made of them is highly interpretive and their calibration is difficult. Well control is vital but it normally allows only very limited supervision of a seismic classifier. An example is presented to illustrate these problems. Copyright © 1990, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved