Object-Based Approach for Sedimentary Structure Interpretations

Abstract

Sedimentary structures can be source of heterogeneities at various scales in preserved deposits. These heterogeneities can have huge impacts on resource volumes and recovery rates. The classical manual picking approaches for interpreting abundant multidimensional sedimentological structures can be very tedious and time consuming. We propose to perform an object-based modeling of these sedimentary structures. In particular, we aim at providing a flexible and compact object model capable of representing sedimentary structures at different scales. We construct 3D sedimentary objects representing various geometries and providing a curvilinear framework for modeling structures internal heterogeneities. Geo-bodies are defined by a boundary representation. Each bounding surface is a parametric deformable surface constructed using Non Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) which consist in smooth interpolations between sets of points. NURBS are interesting for modeling abundant sedimentary structures because they are easily editable, have a small storage footprint, and have interactive computation time. This object-based representation is implemented as a 3D image interpretation tool suitable for seismic images, satellites images and digital outcrop models. Our method also includes automatic optimization processes to increase the rapidity and the effectiveness of the interpretations.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90189 © 2014 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Houston, Texas, USA, April 6–9, 2014