Common-azimuth seismic data fault analysis using residual UNet

Abstract

Seismic fault interpretation is one of the key steps for seismic structure interpretation, which is a time-consuming task and strongly depends on the experience of the interpreter. Aiming to automate fault interpretation, we have considered it as an image segmentation issue and adopt a solution using a residual UNet (ResUNet), which introduces residual units to UNet. Using the ResUNet model, we develop a fault-versus-azimuth analysis based on offset vector tile data, which, as common-azimuth seismic data, provide more detailed and useful information for interpreting seismic faults. To avoid manual efforts for picking training labels and the inaccuracy introduced by different interpreters, we use synthetic seismic data with a random number of faults with different locations and throws as the training and validation data sets. ResUNet is finally trained using only synthetic data and tested on field data. Field data applications show that the proposed fault-detection algorithm using ResUNet can predict seismic faults more accurately than coherence- and UNet-based approaches. Moreover, geologic fault interpretation results computed using common-azimuth data exhibit higher lateral resolution than those computed using poststack seismic data.