CWP-722 Unfaulting and unfolding 3D seismic images

a) b) c) Figure 1. A seismic image (a) is first unfaulted (b) and then flattened (c) using fault throw vectors and flattening shift vectors computed automatically. One limitation of automatic interpretation methods such as seismic image flat-tening is their inability to handle geologic faults. To address this limitation, we propose to combine a method for automatic image unfaulting with seismic image flattening. First, using fault surfaces and fault throw vectors estimated from an image, we interpolate throw vectors to produce a throw vector field, which we use to unfault the image. Then, we flatten the unfaulted image to ob-tain a new image in which sedimentary layering is horizontal and also aligned across faults. From this flattened unfaulted image, we can automatically extract geologic horizons. Key words: seismic image unfaulting flattening interpretation interpolation