--> Understanding Deepwater Transport Systems through Processing and Interpreting Seismic Data in Color

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Understanding Deepwater Transport Systems through Processing and Interpreting Seismic Data in Color

Abstract

Deepwater transport systems play an important role in petroleum geoscience as both a reservoir and drilling obstacle. The often complex texture of these transport systems are commonly misunderstood due to the rapidly varying texture in the vertical and lateral direction. The interpretation of seismic data using traditional attributes often reveals only the lateral extent of clearly identifiable structures such as well defined channels. The limitation in vertical direction to about 10 m to 20 m, and the often poor impedance contrast do not support the analysis of poorly defined channels and channel systems.

The transformation of seismic data into true-color red-green-blue (RGB) images and the subsequent correlation analysis of these images, however, yielded sharp image results at the scale of a single seismic sample. The image correlation also boosted the signal to noise ratio significantly, thus yielding more contrast of even faint transport features. The study of a complete deepwater transport system from the Gulf of Mexico will demonstrate how the color processing approach reveals sudden changes in the transport deposits, as well as more stationary flow structures.