Extraction and Visual Analysis of Seismic Horizon Ensembles

Abstract

Seismic interpretation is an important step in building subsurface models, which are needed to efficiently exploit fossil fuel reservoirs. However, seismic features are seldom unambiguous, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty in the extracted model. In this paper we present a novel system for the extraction, analysis, and visualization of ensemble data of seismic horizons. By parameterizing the cost function of a global optimization technique for seismic horizon extraction, we can create ensembles of surfaces describing each horizon, instead of just a single surface. Our system also provides the tools for a complete statistical analysis of these data. Additionally, we allow an interactive exploration of the parameter space to help finding optimal parameter settings for a given dataset.