Interpreting Subsurface Seismic Data

1st Edition - May 27, 2022
Editors: Rebecca Bell, David Iacopini, Mark Vardy
Language: English
Paperback ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 1 8 5 6 2 - 9
eBook ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 1 9 6 9 2 - 2

Interpreting Subsurface Seismic Data presents recent advances in methodologies for seismic imaging and interpretation across multiple applications in geophysics including explorati… Read more

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Interpreting Subsurface Seismic Data presents recent advances in methodologies for seismic imaging and interpretation across multiple applications in geophysics including exploration, marine geology, and hazards. It provides foundational information for context, as well as focussing on recent advances and future challenges. It offers detailed methodologies for interpreting the increasingly vast quantity of data extracted from seismic volumes.

Organized into three parts covering foundational context, case studies, and future considerations, Interpreting Subsurface Seismic Data offers a holistic view of seismic data interpretation to ensure understanding while also applying cutting-edge technologies. This view makes the book valuable to researchers and students in a variety of geoscience disciplines, including geophysics, hydrocarbon exploration, applied geology, and hazards.

Cover image
Title page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Contributors
About the editors
Chapter 1. Introduction
1. Brief history of seismic exploration
2. Book overview
3. Future outlook
Section 1. Interpretation of seismic data in complex systems
Chapter 2. Natural Gas Hydrate Systems
1. Gas hydrate
2. Bottom simulating reflections
3. Direct gas hydrate indicators
4. Summary
Chapter 3. Seismic geomorphology as a tool to explore the georesource potential of slope failures—examples from offshore North West Shelf, Australia
1. Introduction
2. Methods
3. Slope failures in the North West Shelf of Australia
4. Concluding remarks
Chapter 4. Seismic facies and geobody characterization in the pre-salt rift section: the Lagoa Feia Group, Campos Basin, offshore Brazil
1. Introduction
2. Geological and tectonic settings
3. Datasets
4. Methods
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Conclusions
Chapter 5. Subjective uncertainty and biases: The impact on seismic data interpretation
1. Uncertainty and biases
2. Anchoring to conceptual models
3. Availability bias
4. Herding
5. Framing bias
6. Mitigation
7. Final considerations
Section 2. Interpretation and reprocessing of legacy data
Chapter 6. The use of public vintage seismic reflection profiles: An example of data rescue from the eastern Tyrrhenian margin (Italy)
1. Introduction and background
2. Materials and methods
3. Geological background
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Chapter 7. Time to depth seismic reprocessing of vintage data: A case study in the Otranto Channel (South Adriatic Sea)
1. Introduction
2. Geological setting
3. Data and methods
4. Results and discussion
5. Conclusions
Chapter 8. Imaging subsurface structures using wave equation datuming advanced seismic techniques
1. Introduction
2. Wave equation datuming technique
3. Case studies
4. Conclusion
Exercises
Section 3. Quantitative seismic interpretation
Chapter 9. AVO: Theory and practice
1. AVO standard equation
2. AVO measurements
3. Measurement errors
4. Anisotropy
5. Intercept-gradient crossplots
6. AVO and elastic properties
7. AVO projections
8. AVO in the impedance domain
9. Seismic χ-angles
10. Application
11. Summary
Chapter 10. Applications of seismic AVA inversions for petrophysical characterization of subsurface targets
1. Introduction
2. A brief introduction to Bayesian inversion
3. Nile Delta inversion example
4. Example of MCMC inversion applied to an onshore reflection seismic data
5. Conclusions
Chapter 11. Full-waveform inversion of seismic data
1. Introduction
2. Workflow and validation on a 3D field dataset
3. Challenges and opportunities
Index

Rebecca Bell

Rebecca Bell has 18 years’ experience in the interpretation of seismic reflection data. She is currently a senior lecturer at Imperial College London and teaches Seismic Techniques to undergraduates and MSc students. She has worked on a wide-range of academic and industry 2D and 3D seismic datasets working on scientific problems from ‘how do rift zones initiative?’ to ‘what controls the style of earthquake behaviour at subduction zones?’. She also has experience in collection of field data optimal for full-waveform inversion techniques and is interested in the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to aid seismic interpretation.

Affiliations and expertise

Senior Lecturer, Imperial College London, UK

David Iacopini

David Iacopini is currently associate professor at the University of Naples Federico II. He teaches Marine Geology and subsurface geology techniques. In the past he has been working in Pisa and Aberdeen University where he did coordinated the Integrated Petroleum Geology MSc and contributed to establish the Geophysics Msci. His scientific interests range from basin analysis to marine geology including reservoir characterization for storage technology, using 2D and 3D seismic interpretation, boreholes and image processing techniques. He acted as research consultant for various O&G industry mainly on deep water structures, pre-salt reservoir characterization and subsurface fault characterization.

Affiliations and expertise

Associate Professor at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Mark Vardy

Mark Vardy has 14 years’ experience in the acquisition, processing and interpretation of seismic reflection data. He is currently head of R&D at SAND Geophysics and holds a Visiting Researcher position at the University of Southampton, where he has taught seismic processing and interpretation methods at undergraduate and postgraduate level. He has contributed to a wide-range of academic and industry projects, working with data at all scales (engineering to crustal), 2D and 3D, and in a broad range of environments (both deep and shallow water). However, his primary focus is on quantitative imaging/inversion at engineering scales.

Affiliations and expertise

Head of Research and Development, SAND Geophysics, UK

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Interpreting Subsurface Seismic Data

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Rebecca Bell

David Iacopini

Mark Vardy