Automatic Fault
Extraction (AFE) of Faults and a Salt Body in a 3-D Survey from the
Dorn, Geoffrey A.1,
Huw E. James2 (1)
Traditionally faults are picked from discontinuities in seismic
amplitude and from Coherency (discontinuity) volumes. This remains one of the
most tedious and time-consum-ing aspects of 3D
seismic interpretation. Several attempts that have been made to automate fault
interpretation in the past have failed to deliver acceptable interpretations
with less effort in less time than manual methods.
Automatic Fault
Extraction (AFE) is a process designed to
automatically interpret
fault
surfaces from 3-D Coherency volumes. AFE
significantly improves efficiency in the 3-D
fault
interpretation, providing
accurate and detailed interpretations of
fault
surfaces. These surfaces can
help improve the performance of horizon auto tracking and segmentation algorithms,
minimizing problems with miscorrelation across faults. AFE combines signal processing
technology with geologic rule based steps and a suite of tools to enable
automated and semi-automated
fault
interpretation. The input to AFE is a 3D
discontinuity volume. The output is a volume of relative
fault
probability,
fault
polylines and
fault
surfaces. Any discontinuity
attribute may be used for input.
The application
of this technology on a 3D survey from the fault
surfaces that compare well with manually
interpreted
fault
surfaces. The AFE process also detects and interprets the
boundary of a salt body in the survey.