ABSTRACT: New Play Concepts for North Slope/Beaufort Sea, Alaska, Using Time-Converted Wireline Logs with Seismic-Sequence Analysis

BARTBERGER, CHARLES E., and STEVEN G. NATALI, Amoco Production Co., Denver, CO

Integration of wireline-log data with seismic profiles provides a powerful tool for hydrocarbon exploration. Traditionally, this is accomplished through use of synthetic seismograms derived from sonic logs. This process, however, does not afford a direct "geological view" of seismic data, but instead requires mental correlation of wireline curves with seismic reflectors.

A superior exploration technique is achieved through conversion of wireline-log data from depth to time for direct display on seismic profiles. Direct visual correlation of wireline-log curves and paleontological data with seismic reflectors affords significantly improved insight into sequence-stratigraphic relationships, facies tracts, and depositional systems.

Superposition of five time-converted wireline logs and paleontological data on a seismic profile from North Slope, Alaska, greatly enhances a systems-tract interpretation of the Tertiary interval on that seismic line. Seismic geometries indicative of incised fluvial valleys and exposure surfaces are confirmed to be in appropriate stratigraphic positions and correlate directly with lowstand systems tracts. A paleontologically identified condensed zone is correlative with a seismically identified maximum flooding surface. Another zone, interpreted paleontologically as shallow-water, previously was ignored and attributed to anomalous data because it was presumed to lie in a seismically defined deep-water setting, but now is identified as a shelf-margin systems tract.

On one seismic profile, integration of time-converted wireline-log data with a systems-tract approach resulted in recognition of two lowstand play concepts with stratigraphic trapping potential in an interval that previously was overlooked as nonprospective.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91012©1992 AAPG Annual Meeting, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 22-25, 1992 (2009)