An integrated biostratigraphic, seismic reservoir characterization and numerical stratigraphic forward modelling approach to imaging drowned carbonate platforms: a case study from eastern Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract The New Guinea Limestone Group was deposited across much of New Guinea, including the Indonesian provinces of West Papua and Papua, as part of a widespread shallow-water carbonate platform during the Paleogene and Neogene. This platform was drowned beneath deeper-water strata from the Middle to Late Miocene. Review of biostratigraphic and seismic data from the Aru Basin, offshore New Guinea, reveals a drowning succession c. 600 m thick deposited during a drowning event that lasted around 4 Ma. The objective of this study was to create a well-to-seismic tie from a single well in the study area using biostratigraphic, seismic and log data. The well-to-seismic tie was built to constrain a new velocity model to better image the drowned carbonate platform and understand the reservoir potential of the drowning succession in the zone of interest using two complimentary techniques: seismic reservoir characterization and numerical stratigraphic forward modelling. The well-to-seismic tie was achieved by matching significant biostratigraphic events, such as unconformities, with seismic horizons using stratigraphy-to-seismic. Modern stratigraphic and seismic reservoir characterization techniques, including stratigraphy-to-seismic, numerical forward modelling, velocity model building, rock physics and seismic inversion, were applied to predict rock properties such as lithology and porosity within the drowning succession.