Integrated geophysical study of an onshore salt dome

Abstract

The primary object of this study was to test our ability to determine the 3-D geometry of a complex salt dome onshore Louisiana by integrating geophysical techniques from several disciplines. The techniques included high‐end 2-D seismic processing including prestack depth migration, 3-D forward modeling and inverse seismic modeling, and 3-D forward gravity modeling. Each technique has significant limitations in this complex geologic setting. 2-D prestack depth migration produces a high fidelity image of the dome, but it does not account for 3-D effects. 3-D seismic modeling produces an accurate image of the top of salt, but it was difficult to apply to the base of salt in this example. 3-D gravity modeling results in estimates of salt geometry, but requires an accurate geometry of the top of salt and accurate section densities to determine the geometry of the base of salt.