This study integrates statistical rock physics with pressure and thermal history modeling for quantitative seismic interpretation workflows. We model pressure and thermal history with a 2D basin model intersecting two wells across the turtle structure of Thunder Horse mini-basin. In the subsequent parts, we combine the basin modeling simulations of effective stress and smectite to illite transformation with statistical rock physics to test how lithofacies elastic properties may be extrapolated away from the wells. This extrapolation extends the training data within the geologic context, and serves the purpose of constraining the background model for seismic inversion. To assess the value added by the basin-modeling guided extrapolation to the quantitative seismic interpretation workflow, we establish a base case that is based on actual data from both wells. We also ran two other quantitative seismic interpretation scenarios that are based only on one well, with and without the guided extrapolations. The scenario with guided extrapolations shows improvement in capturing the spatial trends of elastic properties in the extended training data and derived distributions. The inverted impedances volumes are also improved when compared to the other scenario limited to one well without geological extrapolation. Furthermore, the scenario with the extrapolation result in a lithofacies map nearly identical to that obtained from the base case.
Presentation Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Start Time: 1:50 PM
Location: 330A
Presentation Type: ORAL
