Enhanced Information Recovery

Peter K. Pleitner

The petroleum industry is not recovering all the information potential from their exploration data. Although the industry is reaping great benefit from technological advancements in the collection and processing of individual types of data, very little effort is directed toward the integration of data and professionals on the exploration team. Institutionally sanctioned professional bigotry is a large part of the problem. Geologists, geophysicists, and a variety of narrowly focused professionals too often work on a prospect independently for too long without the benefit of sharing and testing many different concepts and hypotheses with others who may not know that they have corroborating data which can support a fragile hunch. Consequently, prospects go undetected, a sign ficant fraction of the exploration budget may be systematically misallocated, and time is lost on the wrong data. More information could be recovered from the exploration data, and time and money saved, by creating a sophisticated image of each data base, merging all images into a common map projection, and convening a multidisciplinary team of professionals for an integrated study.

The technical solution is already at hand, namely computer processing technology, geographic information systems, and digital image processing. That is the easy part of enhancing the information potential of the exploration department's resource--its data. Images of data are simply picture maps of information. Pictures of data are optimal information vehicles for three reasons: (1) they can be rich conveyors of information; (2) they are the lowest common denominator for the transfer of information to a diverse audience; and (3) they are much more fluid and inert when transmitted from one professional turf to another.

Three case studies are presented to illustrate the techniques and benefits of data imaging and integration, one each from the Michigan basin, the Illinois basin, and the Mid-Continent rift zone. Landsat, gravity, magnetic, and topographic data processing, imaging, and integration techniques are illustrated as individual techniques and are compared to well log or seismic data for the three case studies.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91038©1987 AAPG Annual Convention, Los Angeles, California, June 7-10, 1987.