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Uses and abuses of "phantom" seismic horizons

Michigan Technological University, Houghton, U.S.

Corresponding author: wayne@mtu.edu

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Seismic attributes, such as amplitude, are often mapped on horizons that have been tracked as peaks or troughs. In some instances, the attributes of a geologic bed are desired, even though that bed may not correspond directly to a specific peak or trough. In these cases, the interpreter may resort to the use of "phantom" horizons—ones that are based on a horizon that can be tracked (as a peak or a trough), and then displaced in time an appropriate amount to correspond to the geologic bed of interest. This approach can be useful, but because the tracked horizon and the geologic bed of interest may not be precisely conformable, it is fraught with dangers.

The best solution to avoiding these dangers is to avoid the use of point-based attributes with phantom horizons. Instead, use window-based attributes surrounding the phantom horizon; if the window encompasses the appropriate parts of the geologic bed of interest, useful attributes may be extracted from it.

Here we first present an example of an inappropriate use of phantom horizons, based on the public-domain Stratton data set from south Texas. Then, we present a proper use of attributes based on a window about a phantom horizon, using a data set from Wyoming.

The Stratton data set contains seismic data, log data, and time-depth relationships derived from vertical seismic profiling, within an area of thin fluvial beds, some of which contain hydrocarbons. Hardage, Levey, and Pendleton (GEOPHYSICS, 1994) demonstrated the . . . [Full Text of this Article]