Rock Solid Images

Seismic Data Conditioning - AVATAR®

Most seismic data is processed to optimize image quality for structural interpretation, with little regard to preserving characteristics essential for successful seismic reservoir characterization. No matter how sophisticated the inversion algorithm, use of inadequately processed seismic data will severely impact the quality of the final interpretation.

As a consequence, seismic data (and well logs) can rarely be used “as is” for seismic reservoir characterization without substantial pre-conditioning. Rock Solid Images uses our AVATAR toolkit to provide a complete suite of seismic data conditioning steps to optimize the quality of pre and post-stack seismic data prior to use in impedance, AVO and seismic facies inversion applications. Similarly, Geophysical Well Log Analysis GWLA® is used to condition well-logs used for seismic modeling and WellTie™ analysis in iMOSS®.

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AVATAR may be applied to pre or post-stack seismic data and is composed of several interlinked steps:

EPS – Edge Preserving Smoothing (Pre or Post Stack)

This process attenuates random noise while preserving edges or discontinuities in the 3D data volume. A locally computed dip controlled adaptive semblance algorithm is employed. In pre-stack applications, the algorithm operates in the common-offset volume domain.

ALIGN – Prestack Data Alignment (Pre-Stack)

A fundamental assumption made in AVO inversion is that primary reflection events are horizontally aligned (flat) across each CDP gather. The presence of residual moveout, non-hyperbolic moveout, random noise, multiples, tuning effects etc. will violate this assumption and introduce noise (uncertainty) into the AVO results. The ALIGN module within AVATAR corrects for various residual moveout effects; a much improved AVO signature results.

SBAL – Spectral Balancing (Pre or Post Stack)

A Gabor-Morlet decomposition is employed to generate discrete spectral bands. Energy in the higher-frequency bands is enhanced while preserving the overall amplitude contrasts within the volume.

QCOMP – Q Compensation (Post-Stack)

Shallow and deep wavelets are compared on a continuous basis to build an adaptive operator designed to match the wavelet characteristics of the deeper section with that of the shallow.

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