Sub-Basalt Imaging - Solutions
Challenge

The presence of near-surface basalt layers can severely limit the ability of seismic data to image potential hydrocarbon reservoirs under the basalt, and to image the base of the basalt itself. The basalt attenuates the seismic signal, and lateral variations in basalt lithology and geometry can cause severe ray-path problems. The challenge is to produce an accurate velocity depth model of the basalt layer, and to better define the base basalt pick.

basalt
RSI Solutions
  • Use seismic data to define the top basalt pick.
  • Use the top-basalt pick from seismic to constrain a CSEM/MT joint inversion to define the base basalt interval.
  • Iterate pre-stack seismic depth migration using theCSEM/MTderived base basalt model to improve seismic image quality sub-basalt.
RSI Publications