Artificial Intelligence for Basin Analysis

Abstract

The swift proliferation of the use of artificial intelligence for basin analysis may be characterized by the fact that there are about a hundred expert systems and knowledge-based programs on this topic published at the last half decade. They concern the following three groups of application: (1) General problems and auxiliary methods of basin analysis. There are 27 expert systems for geographical and cartographical foundations, photogeology and remote sensing, classification of sedimentary basins, selection of the exploration strategy and prognostication of deposits, and also for the statistical data analysis. (2) Exploration and evaluation of deposits. This topic concerns 43 systems used for field-geophysical and geochemical survey, well-logging interpretation, classification, and identification of minerals, rock types and raw materials, paleontology, geochronology and paleoclimatology, fades analysis and identification of depositional environments, stratigraphic correlation and for structural modeling of deposits, and resource appraisal by geostatistic and other methods. (3) Special exploration systems and advising tools. There are 24 systems for oil exploration, hydrogeology and environment protection, engineering geology, and for seismic risk evaluation.