Reflection Events Research Articles

Model-based interbed multiple attenuation: a case study of Najmah reservoir, North Kuwait Jurassic

The Late Jurassic Najmah Formation of Northeast Kuwait consists of a fractured tight carbonate reservoir and organic-rich kerogen layer (Figure 1). Development of the Najmah reservoir is contingent on recognizing naturally fractured areas. Prior to seismic reservoir characterization, it is essential to ensure that the data quality is reliable before extracting any information from the seismic data. Noise contamination can obscure the reflections of interest, leading to inaccurate interpretation and the need for further data analysis for reservoir delineation. Data acquired in the study area indicates that P-wave seismic data within the reservoir interval suffers from the interference of coherent noise related to the interbed multiple. The interbed multiple is a serious problem that is common in the land seismic datasets in the Middle East (Al-Khaled et al., 2008; Al-Nahhas et al., 2008; El-Emam et al., 2011, 2005; Lesnikov and Owusu, 2011; Ras et al., 2012; Sonika et al., 2012; Wu et al. 2011). This study utilized a 9 mile2 (23.3 km2) 3D full azimuth P-wave seismic data set provided by Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to the Reservoir Characterization Project (RCP) at the Colorado School of Mines. The seismic data was a preliminary result of pre-stack time migration from continuing seismic data processing. Short and long period demultiple and interbed demultiples were applied during the original data processing. A synthetic seismogram of well B portrays the reservoir interval with greater amplitude than the seismic data (Figure 2). This anomaly is consistently observed for all seismic well ties of ten available wells within the 3D seismic data. Furthermore, inside-outside corridor stack analysis of zero-offset VSP (Vertical Seismic Profile) depicts similar amplitude difference that indicates the presence of noise interference from multipathing of seismic energy above the reservoir interval. Evidence of the presence of multiples can be observed from the raw stack of down-going wavefields of the zero-offset VSP. Interbed multiple effects on the seismic data can be seen as a periodic repetition of reflection events, either individual events or interference with primaries. In this case, the multiples seem to interfere with the primary reflection. This study reveals interbed multiples related to the first anhydrite layer within the Gotnia Formation above the reservoir layers are the primary cause of the interference. Applying model-based interbed multiple attenuation reduces the noise interference and improves the imaging of the reservoir section. The multiple-attenuated seismic data have a better correlation with synthetics derived from ten control wells used in this study, leading to better seismic inversion accuracy and reservoir characterization.

Global optimization strategies for implementing 3D common-reflection-surface stack using the very fast simulated annealing algorithm: Application to real land data

The 3D common-reflection-surface (CRS) stack operator depends on eight kinematic wavefield attributes that must be extracted from the prestack data. These attributes are obtained by an efficient optimization strategy based on the maximization of the coherence measure of the seismic reflection events included by the CRS stacking operator. The main application of these kinematic attributes is to simulate zero-offset stacked data; however, they can also be used for regularization of the prestack data, prestack migration, and velocity model determination. The initial implementations of the 3D CRS stack used grid-search techniques to determine the attributes in several steps with the drawback that accumulated errors can deteriorate the final result. In this work, the global optimization very fast simulated annealing algorithm is used to search for the kinematic attributes by applying three optimization strategies for implementing CRS stacking: (1) simultaneous global search of five kinematic attributes of the 3D common-diffraction-surface stacking operator, (2) two-step global optimization strategy to first search for three attributes and then five attributes of the CRS stacking operator, and (3) simultaneous global search of eight kinematic attributes of the CRS operator. The proposed CRS stacking algorithms are applied to land data of the Potiguar Basin, Brazil. It is demonstrated that the one-step optimization strategy of the eight parameters produces the best results, however, with a higher computational cost.

A comparative study of common-reflection-surface prestack time migration and data regularization: Application in crooked-line data

To improve the time-domain imaging of poor-quality seismic data, the common-reflection-surface (CRS) stack method was introduced to simulate zero-offset (ZO) stacked sections from a multicoverage data set based on automatic coherence analysis of seismic signals. This method produces improved ZO stacked sections with a high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and good continuity of reflection events. However, the stacking results may have some undesirable artifacts that can degrade the poststack migrated image. To overcome these drawbacks, I have developed a prestack data regularization method, based on CRS partial stacks, which produces prestack data with high S/N and enhanced reflection events. The regularized data are usually applied for velocity analysis and conventional prestack migration in the time and depth domains. Recently, the CRS stacking operator has also been applied for developing a new type of prestack beam migration. This new migration combines the classic Kirchhoff migration with the CRS stack method, in which the beam-forming process stacks locally coherent events that are performed using the CRS operator during migration. This work reviews this CRS-based prestack migration method in the time domain and presents a comparative study with the main standard applications of the CRS stack method, such as CRS stacking plus poststack time migration and CRS-based regularization plus prestack time migration (PSTM). To evaluate its effectiveness and reliability, CRS-based PSTM and CRS-based prestack data regularization were applied in a crooked line. The time-migrated image resulting from the regularized data has strong migration artifacts due to the crookedness of the seismic line; in contrast, the CRS-based time migration provides a good-quality image without migration artifacts.

Reverse time migration using phase crosscorrelation

Additional information regarding the continuity and resolution of selected seismic reflectors in reverse time migration (RTM) images can be beneficial for seismic interpretation. We have developed and evaluated new imaging conditions for RTM based on the phase coherence between the forward- and backward-propagated wavefields. These imaging conditions make use of the instantaneous phase and envelope of the analytical signals of the source and receiver wavefields, in addition to their real parts. Once the analytical wavefields are available, these imaging conditions can be calculated simultaneously with conventional conditions at little or no extra cost. The availability of these fields at each image point enables several alternative ways to define imaging conditions. We explore, in addition to pure phase crosscorrelation (PC), two approaches of amplitude-weighted PC. Our numerical experiments, imaging synthetic and field data sets, indicate that these new imaging conditions provide additional images that can highlight some weak reflectors by locally improving the resolution of RTM images. In our examples, this happens particularly in the deep portions of the seismic images. In addition, reflection events produced at discontinuities are enhanced as sharp signals, suggesting that the proposed imaging conditions can help to delineate stratigraphic and structural features that are harder to see in conventional images. These properties of the PC imaging conditions make them an interesting tool to provide additional information that can aid seismic interpretation in complex structural settings.

A robust surface-consistent residual phase correction method based on migrated gathers

Conventional residual static corrections determine the residual statics (time shifts) using common mid-point (CMP) gathers to estimate and correct anomalies induced by the near-surface. These time shifts disregard the phase errors existing in the data, which will reduce the resolution of the stacked image. Further errors result when reflection events in CMP gathers do not exhibit hyperbolic moveout. In order to solve these problems, we propose a robust surface-consistent residual phase correction method that simultaneously resolves both time shifts and constant phase rotations based on migrated gathers. The surface-consistent residual statics and phase are obtained from the migrated gathers expressed in terms of shot and receiver locations. We modified the standard technique of estimating the time shift corrections to include a surface-consistent constant phase rotation term. The proposed dual parameter algorithm (time shift and constant phase rotation) proved on a synthetic example that it was superior to conventional residual statics for improving the coherence of trace gathers. The computational effort can be reduced by generating migrated gathers and estimating the dual parameters in a spatially varying time window. We applied the proposed method to both synthetic and real data, and improved results were obtained with both.

The shallow subsurface structures of Chang’E-3 landing site based on the wavefield characteristics of LPR Channel-2B data

The Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) carried by the Yutu rover has imaged the shallow subsurface of the Chang’E-3 (CE-3) landing site at the northern Mare Imbrium. In this paper, by processing LPR Channel-2B data we obtained radar waveform profile. According to the radar wavefield characteristics in the profile, three evident strata can be discovered in the lunar shallow subsurface below the CE-3 site. Most notably, many arc-shaped reflection and/or diffraction events are observed in the profile, especially more in the second layer. In order to find out what caused those arc-shaped events, we conducted radar wavefield numerical simulation. The numerical simulation results reveal that those arc-shaped events are most possibly resulted in by the rocks of different sizes and shapes from the craters surrounding the landing site, especially the C1 crater.

Estimation of the displacements among distant events based on parallel tracking of events in seismic traces under uncertainty

The method we propose in this paper seeks to estimate interface displacements among strata related with reflection seismic events, in comparison to the interfaces at other reference points. To do so, we search for reflection events in the reference point of a second seismic trace taken from the same 3D survey and close to a well. However, the nature of the seismic data introduces uncertainty in the results. Therefore, we perform an uncertainty analysis using the standard deviation results from several experiments with cross-correlation of signals. To estimate the displacements of events in depth between two seismic traces, we create a synthetic seismic trace with an empirical wavelet and the sonic log of the well, close to the second seismic trace. Then, we relate the events of the seismic traces to the depth of the sonic log. Finally, we test the method with data from the Namorado Field in Brazil. The results show that the accuracy of the event estimated depth depends on the results of parallel cross-correlation, primarily those from the procedures used in the integration of seismic data with data from the well. The proposed approach can correctly identify several similar events in two seismic traces without requiring all seismic traces between two distant points of interest to correlate strata in the subsurface.

Ground roll attenuation by synchrosqueezed curvelet transform

Ground roll is a type of coherent noise in land seismic data that has low frequency, low velocity and high amplitude. It damages reflection events that contain important information about subsurface structures, hence the removal of ground roll is a crucial step in seismic data processing. A suitable transform is needed for removal of ground roll. Curvelet transform is an effective sparse transform that optimally represents seismic events. In addition, the curvelets can provide a multiscale and multidirectional decomposition of the input data in time-frequency and angular domain, which can help distinguish between ground roll and useful signals. In this paper, we apply synchrosqueezed curvelet transform (SSCT) for ground roll attenuation. The synchrosqueezing technique in SSCT is used to precisely reallocate the energy of local wave vectors in order to separate ground roll from the original data with higher resolution and higher fidelity. Examples of synthetic and field seismic data reveal that SSCT performs well in the suppression of aliased and non-aliased ground roll while preserving reflection waves, in comparison with high-pass filtering, wavelet and curvelet methods.

Unconventional-Reservoir Characterization With Azimuthal Seismic Diffraction Imaging

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper URTeC 2695232, “Unconventional-Reservoir Characterization With Azimuthal Seismic Diffraction Imaging,” by Dmitrii Merzlikin, Sergey Fomel, Xinming Wu, and Mason Phillips, The University of Texas at Austin, prepared for the 2017 Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, Austin, Texas, USA, 24–26 July. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The complete paper proposes an azimuthal plane-wave-destruction (AzPWD) seismic-diffraction-imaging work flow to efficiently emphasize small-scale features associated with subsurface discontinuities such as faults, channel edges, and fracture swarms and to determine their orientation by properly accounting for edge-diffraction phenomena. The work flow is applied to characterize an unconventional tight-gas-sand reservoir in the Cooper Basin in Western Australia. Extracted orientations of edges provide valuable additional information, which can be used by the interpreter to locate finer-scale features and distinguish them from noise. Introduction Unconventional reservoirs may exhibit high structural variability, which is difficult to characterize with a discrete wells network. 3D reflection seismology allows the extraction of additional information about the subsurface with significantly denser spatial sampling intervals. However, conventional images of the subsurface have low spatial resolution and are dominated by continuous and smooth reflections, which carry the information associated with only large-scale heterogeneities. Diffraction images are more capable than conventional reflection images in emphasizing small-scale features associated with subsurface discontinuities. Many studies employ diffraction images as a source of additional information for interpretation. Past work has proposed an AzPWD work flow, which extends a plane-wave destruction diffraction imaging framework to account for edge-diffraction orientation and allows efficient extraction of these orientations on the basis of scanning of different azimuths. Two modifications to the previously proposed AzPWD work flow are considered in this paper. Edge-diffraction-orientation determination is performed through a structure-tensor estimation based on PWD. A PWD-based structure tensor allows determination of edge-diffraction orientation from two volumes corresponding with PWDs applied in inline and crossline directions. Thus, no scanning over the PWD azimuth is required. Because reflection/diffraction separation is performed on the basis of the PWD filter in the data domain, the approach pertains to a diffraction imaging framework. The structure-tensor estimation approach has been applied previously in the image space on the basis of image gradients, the highest contribution to which is connected with strong and coherent reflection events masking diffractions. The second improvement presented by the AzPWD work flow is based on additional smoothing along the edge orientation, which makes the diffraction/ reflection-separation operator equivalent to the structure-oriented Sobel filter.

Shallow water multichannel sub-bottom profiling using Kirchhoff imaging

Single-channel sub-bottom profilers are commonly used for shallow water seismic investigation. This work reports the design and construction of a multiple channel profiler that allows more effective seismic imaging techniques. The system is composed of a controlled acoustic source and a 1.6 m long array with eight evenly spaced receiver channels, and operates using CHIRP signals with frequency ranging from 800 Hz to 8 kHz. A survey was carried out to obtain seismic data in the region of Lagoa da Conceição, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The acquired data was processed using a seismic imaging technique based on the pre-stack Kirchhoff time migration. Both the multichannel seismic data acquisition system and the applied imaging technique showed to be robust for acquiring subsurface information. The use of the pre-stack Kirchhoff time migration resulted in a seismic image with reflection events allocated in the real position and without bow-tie effects since it repositions the diffracted energy back to the spreaders that originated it. This procedure results in a more reliable subsurface image of the studied environment, when compared with single-channel sub-bottom profilers.

Application of Statics Correction in the Processing of 3D Seismic Data from Onshore Niger Delta

Statics correction was applied to a 3D seismic data acquired from an onshore Niger- delta field. The objective of the study was to derive a statics solution, which will correct for time shifts caused by topographic undulations, velocity anomalies in the near-surface and delayed travel times of the reflection signal through the weathered layer. In a previous study by authors, a near-surface seismic velocity and depth model, consisting of the weathering layer and three consolidated (sub-weathering) layers were first estimated. The first-arrivals were picked and used as input for this study. Statics correction consisting of elevation statics, long-wavelength refraction statics, and short-wavelength (residual statics) refraction statics was applied to the data. Interpretation of results show like differences such as a stronger alignment and coherence of reflection events, as well as an upward time shift of the reflection signals when compared with the input data (no statics applied) and the output data (statics applied).

A practical data-driven optimization strategy for Gaussian beam migration

Gaussian beam migration (GBM) is an efficient and accurate depth imaging technique, which allows us to resolve steep-dip structures and image multiple arrivals. Similar to Kirchhoff migration, GBM projects reflection events into the subsurface along traveltime isochrons. For data with low folds or signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), it produces migration artifacts, making it difficult for subsequent interpretation and attribute analysis. We have developed a data-driven optimization strategy to solve this problem. First, at the source and beam center locations, we estimate the instantaneous emergence angles of specular rays using semblance analysis for local common-shot and common-receiver gathers. Then, a quality control factor is designed to enhance the imaging results of coherent signals around the specular rays. Synthetic and field data examples demonstrate that our optimization strategy enables us to improve the imaging quality of GBM, especially for sparsely acquired and low-S/N data.

The Burgers/squirt-flow seismic model of the crust and mantle

Part of the crust shows generally brittle behaviour while areas of high temperature and/or high pore pressure, including the mantle, may present ductile behaviour. For instance, the potential heat source of geothermal fields, overpressured formations and molten rocks. Seismic waves can be used to detect these conditions on the basis of reflection and transmission events. Basically, from the elastic-plastic point of view the seismic properties (seismic velocity, quality factor and density) depend on effective pressure and temperature. Confining and pore pressures have opposite effects on these properties, and high temperatures may induce a similar behaviour by partial melting. In order to model these effects, we consider a poro-viscoelastic model based on the Burgers mechanical element and the squirt-flow model to represent the properties of the rock frame to describe ductility in which deformation takes place by shear plastic flow, and to model local and global fluid flow effects.The Burgers element allows us to model the effects of the steady-state creep flow on the dry-rock frame. The stiffness components of the brittle and ductile media depend on stress and temperature through the shear viscosity, which is obtained by the Arrhenius equation and the octahedral stress criterion. Effective pressure effects are taken into account in the dry-rock moduli by using exponential functions whose parameters are obtained by fitting experimental data as a function of confining pressure. Since fluid effects are important, the density and bulk modulus of the saturating fluids (water at sub- and supercritical conditions) are modeled by using the equations provided by the NIST website. The squirt-flow model has a single free parameter represented by the aspect ratio of the grain contacts. The theory generalizes a preceding theory based on Gassmann (low-frequency) moduli to the more general case of the presence of local (squirt) flow and global (Biot) flow, which contribute with additional attenuation mechanisms to the wave propagation.

Seismic data interpolation using generalised velocity‐dependent seislet transform

ABSTRACTData interpolation is an important step for seismic data analysis because many processing tasks, such as multiple attenuation and migration, are based on regularly sampled seismic data. Failed interpolations may introduce artifacts and eventually lead to inaccurate final processing results. In this paper, we generalised seismic data interpolation as a basis pursuit problem and proposed an iteration framework for recovering missing data. The method is based on non‐linear iteration and sparse transform. A modified Bregman iteration is used for solving the constrained minimisation problem based on compressed sensing. The new iterative strategy guarantees fast convergence by using a fixed threshold value. We also propose a generalised velocity‐dependent formulation of the seislet transform as an effective sparse transform, in which the non‐hyperbolic normal moveout equation serves as a bridge between local slope patterns and moveout parametres in the common‐midpoint domain. It can also be reduced to the traditional velocity‐dependent seislet if special heterogeneity parametre is selected. The generalised velocity‐dependent seislet transform predicts prestack reflection data in offset coordinates, which provides a high compression of reflection events. The method was applied to synthetic and field data examples, and the results show that the generalised velocity‐dependent seislet transform can reconstruct missing data with the help of the modified Bregman iteration even for non‐hyperbolic reflections under complex conditions, such as vertical transverse isotropic (VTI) media or aliasing.

Full waveform inversion using oriented time‐domain imaging method for vertical transverse isotropic media

ABSTRACTFull waveform inversion for reflection events is limited by its linearised update requirements given by a process equivalent to migration. Unless the background velocity model is reasonably accurate, the resulting gradient can have an inaccurate update direction leading the inversion to converge what we refer to as local minima of the objective function. In our approach, we consider mild lateral variation in the model and, thus, use a gradient given by the oriented time‐domain imaging method. Specifically, we apply the oriented time‐domain imaging on the data residual to obtain the geometrical features of the velocity perturbation. After updating the model in the time domain, we convert the perturbation from the time domain to depth using the average velocity. Considering density is constant, we can expand the conventional 1D impedance inversion method to two‐dimensional or three‐dimensional velocity inversion within the process of full waveform inversion. This method is not only capable of inverting for velocity, but it is also capable of retrieving anisotropic parameters relying on linearised representations of the reflection response. To eliminate the crosstalk artifacts between different parameters, we utilise what we consider being an optimal parametrisation for this step. To do so, we extend the prestack time‐domain migration image in incident angle dimension to incorporate angular dependence needed by the multiparameter inversion. For simple models, this approach provides an efficient and stable way to do full waveform inversion or modified seismic inversion and makes the anisotropic inversion more practicable. The proposed method still needs kinematically accurate initial models since it only recovers the high‐wavenumber part as conventional full waveform inversion method does. Results on synthetic data of isotropic and anisotropic cases illustrate the benefits and limitations of this method.

Seismic noise suppression using weighted nuclear norm minimization method

The weighted nuclear norm minimization method as an extension of nuclear-norm minimization was applied to image denoising originally. It is a kind of low rank matrix approximation method that can estimate the noiseless matrix from its noise version. The effective structures of image have a certain degree of repeatability and the weighted nuclear norm minimization method just utilizes this property to construct an approximate low rank matrix. Taking into account the spatial characteristics of seismic data and the redundancies of valid information, we propose to adopt the weighted nuclear norm minimization method to suppress seismic random noise. In this method the block matching algorithm is helpful for the recovery of seismic events because the texture blocks sharing the same reflection events are the most similar. Even when the signal to noise ratio is −10dB, this novel method still be able to clearly recover signals. Experiments on both synthetic and real seismic data show that the weighted nuclear norm minimization method can not only suppress the random noise but also better preserves the valid information of seismic signal when compared to the common seismic denoising methods such as the Wavelet and Time Frequency Peak Filter.

A case study on swell correction of Chirp sub-bottom profiler (SBP) data using multi-beam echo sounder (MBES) data

High-resolution marine seismic data acquisition and subsequent analyses are highly influenced by sea conditions, directly affecting data quality and interpretation. Traditional swell effect correction methods are effective in improving reflector continuity; however, they are less useful for enhancing travel time consistency at intersection points of crossing lines. To develop a robust swell-removal technique for a set of crossing lines multi-beam echo sounder (MBES) data and Chirp sub-bottom profiler (SBP) data were acquired. After generation of a time structure map of the sea-bottom converted from the final processed multi-beam data, a moving average was used to improve the event continuity of the sea-bottom reflection of the Chirp SBP data. Using the position of the Chirp SBP data, the difference between the travel time of the sea-bottom from the smoothed map and the original travel time of the sea-bottom is calculated as a static correction. The static correction method based on the MBES data was compared and verified using three different cases: (i) simple 2D swell effect correction on a line-by-line basis, (ii) comparing the swell corrections at the crossing positions of 2D lines acquired from different dates, and (iii) comparison of ties of intersection points between 2D lines after new swell correction applied. Although a simple 2D swell correction showed great enhancement of reflector continuity, only the full static correction using the newly proposed method using MBES data produced completely corrected reflection events especially at the crossing points of 2D lines.

Deep seismic reflection data interpretation using balanced filtering method

Inverse [Formula: see text] filtering can perform energy compensation and phase correction of seismic reflection data, but it has an instability problem due to its high-pass characteristics. Although improved methods, such as gain-limited inverse [Formula: see text] filtering and stabilized inverse [Formula: see text] filtering, overcome the instability to some extent, they are not suitable for compensating deep seismic reflection events with weak energy. Focusing on the enhancement of deep seismic events, we have developed a balanced filtering method based on the ratio of the phase-compensated signal to its analytic signal counterpart. The method is insensitive to the depth of seismic records, and it can make shallow and deep seismic records visible simultaneously. When tested on synthetic data and real seismic data, compared with other methods, the balanced filtering method improves the amplitude strength of the deep reflection events and the continuity of shallow and deep seismic events effectively, which makes the deep reflection data easier to interpret.

Examples of seismic diffraction imaging from the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Shale, Maverick Basin, South Texas

Diffraction events are recorded along with reflection data during seismic acquisition. However, after processing, final migrated stack data are devoid of diffraction events, which have been collapsed to discrete points, smoothed out, and overshadowed by reflection events. Thus, diffraction events that ought to be available for analysis of the subsurface are lost.In this study, we extract diffractions from 3D stack and then build a 3D diffraction volume that not only images faults but also contains amplitude information used to examine lithological composition in fault zones within the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. We then transform the diffraction data into amplitude envelope volume. This seismic attribute, together with clay volume (Vclay) data, is extracted along interpreted horizons and fault planes. Cross plots between seismic attributes and Vclay show that Vclay increases with increasing diffraction energy. In addition, we observe that the higher the diffraction energies, the higher the fluid saturation, suggesting higher impedance contrast at diffraction points. Furthermore, cross plots between instantaneous dominant frequencies extracted from the diffraction-image volume and amplitude envelope show that within the hydrocarbon-saturated zones, the dominant frequency is approximately constant and in the low-frequency range between 25 and 33 Hz. However, outside the hydrocarbon zones, the dominant frequency increases as the amplitude envelope decreases. Maps of instantaneous dominant frequency extracted from the upper and lower Eagle Ford Shale reveal that areal distribution of low-dominant-frequency zones is coincident with high diffraction energy and hydrocarbon saturation. Based on the foregoing, we conclude that by analyzing diffraction data, it is possible to infer likely sediment variation and hydrocarbon sweet spots within the Eagle Ford Shale and other shale resource plays.

Shale gas reservoir characterization and sweet spot prediction in China

An integrated study of the well Zhao-104 and surrounding wide-azimuth 3D seismic data volume within the shale gas reservoir in South China has been conducted with the objective of generating shale formation properties related to fracture orientation and intensity in the area and deriving such reservoir rock properties as data quality allows. Well data, structural seismic information and prestack inversion products were combined in an integrated interpretation. Seismic gather conditioning improved seismic data quality prior to pre-stack inversion by improving signal/noise ratio, removing NMO stretch and aligning reflection events. Velocities from residual moveout (RMO) analysis on individual sectors were used as input to detection of fracture orientation and anisotropy. Fracture strike and P-wave anisotropy were calculated using the RMO updated sector velocity fields in elliptical velocity inversion, while inversion for P and S impedance and derivative attributes produced volumes that relate to rock properties such as brittleness and rigidity that are likely to impact fracturing. Measured logging curves were edited and missing curves estimated for the entire wellbore for geophysical purposes. Porosity, mineralogy and saturation were also estimated and elastic attributes were examined in crossplot space to find discrimination in properties of interest. Matrix modelling and synthetic seismograms were studied in order to understand likely seismic signatures and AVA behaviour. A set of post-stack volumetric attributes that are indicative of the presence of faults and fractures were derived and fed into an unsupervised neural network to perform fracture facies classification. In addition, seismically resolvable faults and discontinuities were automatically generated from fault sensitive attributes. At the end, information from all parts of the project were combined to assess structural characteristics and identify areas of high fracturing and stress direction that are important for the placement of horizontal wells and likely high total organic content (TOC) zones, necessary as a source of hydrocarbons or ‘sweet spot’.