Geophysical Prospecting, 2015

doi: 10.1111/1365-2478.12344

Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition of seismic data

and its application in hydrocarbon detection
Ya-juan Xue1,2,3 , Jun-xing Cao1,3 , Ren-fei Tian3 , Hao-kun Du1,3 and Yao Yao2
1 State

Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China,
of Communication Engineering, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu 610225, China, and 3 School of
Geophysics, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China

2 School

Received March 2015, revision accepted September 2015

ABSTRACT
How to use cepstrum analysis for reservoir characterization and hydrocarbon detection is an initial question of great interest to exploration seismologists. In this
paper, wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition is proposed as a valid technology for
enhancing geophysical responses in specific frequency bands, in the same way as
traditional spectrum decomposition methods do. The calculation of wavelet-based
cepstrum decomposition, which decomposes the original seismic volume into a series
of common quefrency volumes, employs a sliding window to move over each seismic
trace sample by sample. The key factor in wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition
is the selection of the sliding-window length as it limits the frequency ranges of the
common quefrency section. Comparison of the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition with traditional spectrum decomposition methods, such as short-time Fourier
transform and wavelet transform, is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of
the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition and the relation between these two technologies. In hydrocarbon detection, seismic amplitude anomalies are detected using
wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition by utilizing the first and second common
quefrency sections. This reduces the burden of needing dozens of seismic volumes
to represent the response to different mono-frequency sections in the interpretation
of spectrum decomposition in conventional spectrum decomposition methods. The
model test and the application of real data acquired from the Sulige gas field in
the Ordos Basin, China, confirm the effectiveness of the seismic amplitude anomaly
section using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition for discerning the strong amplitude anomalies at a particular quefrency buried in the broadband seismic response.
Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition provides a new method for measuring the
instantaneous cepstrum properties of a reservoir and offers a new field of processing
and interpretation of seismic reflection data.
Key words: Cepstrum decomposition, Wavelet packet transform, Quefrency, Hydrocarbon detection.

INTRODUCTION
Seismic data are nonlinear and non-stationary in nature and
have multi-component signals, containing varying frequencies
E-mail:xueyj0869@163.com


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2015 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers

in time. Spectral decomposition of seismic data, which can decompose individual seismic volumes into multiple frequency
volumes for maximizing and enhancing geophysical responses
in specific frequency bands, particularly for identifying strong
amplitude anomalies at a particular frequency buried in
the broadband seismic response, has been widely used for

2 Y.-J. Xue et al.

identifying temporal bed thickness and geologic discontinuities, reservoir characterization, detecting hydrocarbon, and
other tasks (Chakraborty and Okaya 1995; Peyton, Bottjer, and Partyka 1998; Partyka, Gridley, and Lopez 1999;
Castagna, Sun, and Siegfried 2003; Sinha et al. 2005; de
Matos and Johann 2007; de Matos et al. 2009; Wu and
Liu 2009; Ehrhardt, Villinger, and Schiffler 2012). Various
timefrequency analysis methods, such as short-time Fourier
transform (STFT), wavelet transform, S transform, the
WignerVille distribution, and empirical mode decomposition (EMD)-based timefrequency methods can be utilized in
spectrum decomposition (Partyka et al. 1999; Castagna et al.
2003; Sinha et al. 2005; Matoes et al. 2005; Odebeatu et al.
2006; Wu and Liu 2009; Xue, Cao, and Tian 2013; Xue
et al. 2014a,b). The aim of spectral decomposition technology
development is to seek methods that have higher time and frequency resolution and that can improve the characterization
of the time-dependent frequency response of subsurface rocks
and reservoirs. For example, Sinha et al. (2005) proposed a
TFCWT algorithm that can map a scalogram produced by
a continuous wavelet transform to a timefrequency spectrum for the interpretation of the seismic data. Pinnegar and
Manisnha (2003) produced a generalized S transform, and
Xue et al. (2014a,b) developed the EMD/TK and EMDWave
methods to avoid the limitation of the Bedrosian theorem
(Bedrosian 1963) and Nuttall theorem (Nuttall 1966), and to
improve the physical meaning of the instantaneous attributes
calculated by the Hilbert transform, thereby providing a better
interpretation result of hydrocarbon detection.
Cepstrum analysis was first defined and used for the
recognition of nuclear explosion and seismic signals by Bogert
et al. (1963). Later development included the power cepstrum
(Bogert et al. 1963; Oppenheim and Schaffer 1989), complex
cepstrum (Oppenheim 1965) and real cepstrum. In general, no
matter which cepstrum is used, its core operation is Fourier
transform. The cepstrum analysis have been mainly applied to
geophysical problems such as the recovery of seismic wavelets,
deconvolving seismic traces, microearthquakes, and teleseismic event analysis (Ulrych 1971; Ulrych et al. 1972; Tuetuencueoglu and Sate 1974; Stoffa, Buhl and Bryan 1974; Scheuer
and Wagner 1985; Miah et al. 2011). Cepstrum analysis has
also been used for reservoir prediction but rarely for hydrocarbon detection. Hall (2006) predicted bed thickness with a
cepstrum and found that cepstrum analysis has the potential
to significantly improve the accuracy of bed thickness estimation from seismic data. However, their methods only work for
synthetic data, and it is difficult to apply the method to real
seismic data.


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Recently, Sanchez et al. (2009) presented a waveletbased cepstrum for pitch extraction in the automatic speech
and speaker recognition systems, whose core operation uses
wavelet packet transform (WPT) instead of Fourier transform
and found that the wavelet-based cepstrum has better effectiveness and accuracy than the traditional cepstrum based
on Fourier transform. In this paper, we modify the waveletbased cepstrum for more suitably assessing seismic data, and
a novel approach for spectral decomposition with a waveletbased cepstrum is introduced. A method for using waveletbased cepstrum decomposition to analyse seismic data is
provided for reservoir characterization and hydrocarbon detection. Finally, a model test and real seismic data are used to
validate the effectiveness of this new method, and a comparison with traditional spectral decomposition is given.

PRINCIPLES AND METHODS

Wavelet-based cepstrum
Traditionally, the cepstrum of a time-series signal s(t)can be
obtained with the following equation:


Cr (q) = F 1 log10 (|F {s(t)}|) ,

(1)

where F () represents a Fourier transform, and q is the quefrency. The cepstrum requires an inverse Fourier transform of
the logarithmic spectrum. It converts the input signal from the
time domain to the frequency domain, scales the input signal
using the logarithmic function, and then returns the scaled
signal to the time domain. Quefrency q in the cepstrum, i.e.,
Cr (q), is a time sample number, but it is different from the
time variable t in the original signal, i.e., s(t).
The wavelet-based cepstrum produced by Sanchez et al.
(2009) is the discrete wavelet packet transform (DWPT) of
the real natural logarithm of the magnitude of the DWPT of
a signal shown by the following equation:


Cw (q) = DWP T log10 (|DWP T {s(t)}|) ,

(2)

where DWP T() represents the discrete wavelet packet transform. The wavelet-based cepstrum filters the input signal,
scales it using the logarithmic function, filters it again, and
then calculates the energy of each sub-band. The parameter
q in the wavelet-based cepstrum is also a time variable, but
it is different from the time variable t in the original signal.
Symmlets or coiflets are found to be the best choice of
wavelet function for the wavelet-based cepstrum (Sanchez
et al. 2009). Note that the wavelet-based transform does not
require an inverse DWPT, but it does require the length of the

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Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition 3

calculated signal to be a power of 2. For each decomposition,

the input signal s(t) is turned into its full mth-level DWPT,
where m = log10 (L)/log10 (2), and L is the length of the input
signal s(t).
In the calculation of the wavelet-based cepstrum, the
DWPT needs a natural frequency ordering (NFO) instead of a
filter bank ordering. In each level of decomposition, the result
of the DWPT should alternate the order of the pair of filters
n1
ki 2i be
to form an NFO (Sanchez et al. 2009). Let k = i=0
the order of the DWT in binary representation, and g(k) be
the Gray code corresponding to k. Then, the NFO order can
be obtained by alternating the order of the DWT in binary representation using the Gray code, as shown by the following
equation (Jensen and la Cour-Harbo 2001; Ji 2005):
gi = ki ki+1 (i = 0, 1, . . . , n 2),
gn1 = kn1 ,

(3)

g(k) = (gn1 gn2 . . . g1 g0 ) B ,

where B indicates the result is in binary representation.
denotes XOR operation.
If we take a close look at the frequency of a wavelet packet
analysis, e.g., those shown in Fig. 1, the frequency range of the
signal is set from 0 to 32 Hz. The sampling frequency is 64 Hz.
Figure 1 shows the 4-order wavelet packet decomposition tree
of the signal and its corresponding frequency band according
to the Mallat algorithm. LP and HP in Fig. 1 denote the lowpass and high-pass filters, respectively. If the signal through
the low-pass filter is denoted 0, and the signal through the
high-pass filter is recorded as 1; then, we can obtain a binary
number corresponding to the filter path of each node, i.e., the
number of the wavelet packet is indicated. As shown in Fig.
1, the frequency arrangement disorder of the wavelet packet
occurs. In each node, if the high-frequency sub-band is further
decomposed, the frequency band will produce a stagger, and
the stagger in the lower layer will bring into the higher layer to
create a further stagger. By applying the Gray code to encode
the wavelet packet number, the relationship between the frequency band distribution and the filter paths can be obtained,
and its value indicates the number of the frequency band in
NFO. Therefore, the frequency band after the wavelet packet
decomposition can be adjusted to correspond with the actual
frequency band.

Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition of seismic data

To generate the common quefrency section using a waveletbased cepstrum, we employ a sliding window with the length


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N to move over each seismic trace, sample by sample. For a

seismic trace s(t), we first need to add N 1 points of zeros
to the seismic trace; the resultant signal f (t) should have the
following form:
f (t) = [zeros(1, N/2 1), s(t), zeros(1, N/2)].

(4)

This process does not change the result of the cepstrum,

but can keep the resultant common quefrency section with
the same time length of the seismic trace. The signal f (t) is
divided for the segments with the sliding window moving sample by sample. Then, the wavelet-based cepstrum is applied to
each windowed segment of the seismic trace. Note that every segment is turned into its full mth-level DWPT, where
m = log10 (N)/ log 10 (2). Due to the NFO adopted in each full
DWPT, the leaves of the decomposition tree contain only one
sample each, and the frequency ranges for each sample can
be determined. Suppose the sampling frequency of the seismic
data is fs ; then, after the mth-level full DWPT, the first point
of the wavelet-based cepstrum will be in the frequency range
of (0, fs /2N), the second point of the wavelet-based cepstrum
will be in the frequency range of ( fs /2N, fs /N), and the k
(k = 1, 2, 3, 4 ) point of the wavelet based cepstrum will be
(k1) f k f
in the frequency range of ( 2N s , 2Ns ). The first point of each
wavelet-based cepstrum of each segment is extracted to generate the first common quefrency section. The second point
of each wavelet-based cepstrum of each segment is extracted
to generate the second common quefrency section. The rest
of the points follow this same method. This procedure is described in Fig. 2. Note that the length of the sliding window
N should be a power of 2.

Seismic amplitude anomaly section using wavelet-based

cepstrum decomposition for hydrocarbon detection
The attenuation of high-frequency energy in the reservoir is
often observed in seismic data analysis, and it removes high
frequencies and lowers the dominant frequency for all subsequent reflections. Therefore, anomalous low-frequency energy concentrated at or beneath the reservoir level, known
as low frequency shadows, can usually be found. Note that
there are other causes of low frequency shadows, in addition
to gas or other hydrocarbons. Ebrom (2004) outlined at least
ten mechanisms for low-frequency shadows. Only after ruling
out the effects of formation, lithology, and other factors, the
attenuation of high-frequency energy and the enhancement of
low-frequency energy can be considered corresponding to the
gas-bearing layers (Xue et al. 2014b). Amplitude anomalies,
with characteristics of higher frequencies attenuating more

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4 Y.-J. Xue et al.

Figure 1 Sketch map of the wavelet packet decomposition tree and its corresponding frequencies. The frequency range of the signal S is set from
0 Hz to 32 Hz. The sampling frequency is 64 Hz. Four-order decomposition is used according to the Mallat algorithm. LP and HP denote the
low-pass and high-pass filters, respectively. 0 denotes the signal through the low-pass filter, and 1 denotes the signal through the high-pass
filter. The binary number corresponding to the filter path of each node, i.e., the number of the wavelet packet, is indicated. The frequency
arrangement disorder of the wavelet packet is found. By applying the Gray code to encode the wavelet packet number, the relationship between
the frequency band distribution and the filter paths can be obtained, and its value indicates the number of the frequency band in NFO.

rapidly than the lower frequencies in gas-prone attenuating

media, can be used as hydrocarbon indicators.
For a seismic trace, the cepstral magnitude is always a
bounded sequence decayed by 1/|n| (n is the sampling point)
(Deng and OShaughnessy, 2003). The energy of the cepstrum


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mainly focuses on the lower quefrency part of the signal.

Generally, the first common quefrency section Cw (1) and the
second common quefrency section Cw (2) are enough for us
to conduct reservoir characterization and hydrocarbon detection (Cao et al. 2011a,b). Let us define a seismic amplitude

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Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition 5

Table 1 Rock properties for the geological models.

Layer number

Vp (m/s1 )

(g/cm3 )


1

2

3

4

5

6

4120
4174
4228
4081
4281
4326

2.368
2.376
2.384
2.362
2.392
2.399

200
200
200
30
200
200

The seismic amplitude anomaly section Cw identifies the

strong amplitude anomalies at a particular frequency band,
which are deeply buried in the broadband seismic response.
Cw can reflect many geologic features of the layer of interest,
such as gas-charged reservoirs or channels, which may cause
amplitude anomalies in the seismic reflection data.
Thus, few data in the seismic amplitude anomaly section indicate no anomalous amplitude, and substantial data
indicate anomalous amplitude.
The logarithm operation employed in the proposed
method enhances the weak pore fluid response and suppresses
the skeleton information. It is a weak signal detection method
but can be beneficial for hydrocarbon detection.
For seismic data, note that, in the wavelet-based cepstrum, the length of the sliding window N should meet the
following relationship:
N = 2i
Figure 2 Flowchart of the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition of
seismic data.

anomaly section Cw to estimate the amplitude anomaly detected by the wavelet-based cepstrum. The seismic amplitude
anomaly section is obtained by the following:


Cw = Cw (1) Cw (2) ,

where i is an integer (i = 1, 2, . . .), fs is the sampling frequency of the seismic data, and fdominant is the dominant frequency of the seismic data. Thus, the frequency of the first
f
,
common quefrency section Cw (1) ranges from 0 to 2 f s
dominant
and the frequency of the first common quefrency section Cw (2)
f
f
to f s .
ranges from 2 f s
dominant

Cw (1) = Normalized(Cw (1) ave(Cw (1))),

(6)

where Normalized() denotes the normalization of the results,

and ave() represents the average of the signal.


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(7)

dominant

(5)

where Cw (1) denotes the normalized results of the amount

of amplitude exceeding the average cepstrum amplitude in
the first common quefrency section, and Cw (2) denotes the
normalized results of the amount of amplitude exceeding the
average cepstrum amplitude in the second common quefrency
section, i.e.,

Cw (2) = Normalized(Cw (2) ave(Cw (2))),

fs
,
2 fdominant

MATERIALS
Model test
To illustrate the process and effectiveness of the seismic amplitude anomaly section extracted by the wavelet-based cepstrum
for hydrocarbon detection, two models are designed with different thicknesses of the gas-bearing layer to simulate the seismic responses. The geological models include six formations.
The parameters of each layer of the models are shown in
4 , and layer 
3 is
Table 1. The gas-bearing layer is layer 
the dry layer (excluding gas). The frequency of the wavelet is
45 Hz. Seismic signals are sampled at 2 ms.

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6 Y.-J. Xue et al.

Figure 3 The geological models and their seismic responses: (a) geological model 1; (b) seismic response of geological model 1; (c) geological
model 2; and (d) seismic response of geological model 2.

Model 1 is designed with a thickness of gas-bearing layer


4 of 35 m. The thickness of gas-bearing layer 
4 in model
2 is 60 m. The geological models and their corresponding
seismic responses are shown in Fig. 3(ad). In gas-bearing
models 1 and 2, due to the presence of the velocity mutation
in the gas-bearing layer, waveform interference and phase polarity reversal occur at the edge of the gas-bearing layer. At
the bottom interface of the gas-bearing layer, the amplitude
is enhanced and exhibits a bright spot phenomenon. The
amplitudes in the entire gas-bearing layer are significantly increased compared with the other layers. In Fig. 3(b), because
4 in model 1 is only 35 m,
the thickness of gas-bearing layer 
the Ricker wavelet sidelobe is hidden in the next layer reflection. Therefore, only four events are found in the middle part
of the seismic section in model 1. Because the thickness of
4 in model 2 increases to 60 m, the sidegas-bearing layer 
lobe from the upper layer is revealed. Thus, we find that there
are five events in the middle part of the seismic section in
model 2 (Fig. 3d).


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Seismic data
To further illustrate the effectiveness of the seismic amplitude
anomaly section extracted by the wavelet-based cepstrum for
hydrocarbon detection, two broad-band migrated stacked 2D
seismic sections intersecting different wells, in which the effective gas-bearing reservoirs are mainly tight sandstone reservoirs from the Sulige gas field in the Ordos Basin, China, are
used for analysis. The gas reservoirs in the two sections are
typical lithologic trap gas reservoirs. Quartz sandstone, lithic
quartz sandstone, and lithic sandstone are the main rock types
in the reservoirs in the two seismic sections. The sandstone
reservoir shows strong heterogeneity. The thickness of the
reservoir is thin.
Figure 4 shows the seismic section intersecting a known
prolific gas well A. The study area, where well A is located
and good gas production is obtained, is indicated by a red
ellipse. The seismic section intersecting well A is used to illustrate the analysis process of the seismic amplitude anomaly
section using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition, and a

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Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition 7

Figure 4 The seismic section intersecting gas well A. The study area where well A is located and high gas production is obtained is indicated by
the red ellipse.

Figure 5 The seismic section intersecting gas well B and water well C. The locations of high gas and water production of well B and C are
shown by two red ellipses.

further comparison of the seismic amplitude anomaly section

using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition with the spectral decomposition results, calculated by short-time Fourier
transform (STFT) and wavelet transform, respectively, is provided. The wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition is applied


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to the seismic section intersecting the two known wells: a

less prolific gas well B and a water well C (Fig. 5). Two
red ellipses show the locations of high gas production well
B and water well C. The seismic signals are sampled at
2 ms.

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8 Y.-J. Xue et al.

Figure 6 Seismic amplitude anomaly section of the models using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition. (a) Seismic amplitude anomaly section
of model 1. The sliding-window length is 8. (b) Two traces extracted from model 1. Note that trace 1 denotes the trace extracted from the dry
layer, and trace 2 denotes the trace extracted from the gas-bearing layer. (c) A comparison of the wavelet-based cepstrum analysis results of
the traces from dry and gas-bearing layers, as shown in (b). (d) Seismic amplitude anomaly section of model 2. The sliding-window length is 8.
(e) Two traces were extracted from model 2. Traces 1 and 2, respectively, denote the traces extracted from the dry and gas-bearing layer. (f) A
comparison of the result of wavelet-based cepstrum analysis of the traces in (e).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Model analysis
Figure 6 shows the seismic amplitude anomaly sections calculated by the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition for
models 1 and 2. The choice of the sliding window is 8. In
Fig. 6(a), we can observe that larger amplitudes occur in the
gas-bearing reservoir. Because the amplitude of the lower reflection interface in the gas-bearing layer is larger than that in
the upper reflection interface, the detected anomalous amplitudes around the lower reflection interface in the gas-bearing
layer are much larger than that around the upper reflection interface. This result can be demonstrated more clearly when we
extract two traces, respectively, from the dry and gas-bearing
layers. We extract one trace from the dry layer, which is denoted 1, and one trace from the gas-bearing layer, which is


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denoted 2, as shown in Fig. 6(b). As Fig. 6(b) shows, the difference between the dry layer and the gas-bearing layer shown
by a red rectangle box is not distinct. Figure 6(c) shows the results of applying the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition
to model 1. We can clearly observe that larger amplitudes
are found in the gas reservoir (denoted 2), whereas no obvious amplitude anomaly is found in the dry layer (denoted 1).
Figure 6(d) shows the seismic amplitude anomaly section of
model 2. When the thickness of the gas-bearing layer is increased to 60 m, the obvious amplitude anomaly can still
be found in the gas-bearing layer, and the detected anomalous amplitudes around the lower reflection interface in the
gas-bearing layer are much larger than that around the upper reflection interface. One trace is extracted from dry layer
(1) and the gas-bearing layer (2), respectively (Fig. 6e). After
using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition, we found that

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Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition 9

Figure 7 The seismic trace intersecting well A. The study area in which well A is located, and high gas production is obtained is indicated by
the red ellipse. (a) The seismic trace intersecting well A. (b) The spectrum of the seismic trace intersecting well A. (c) Wavelet-based cepstrum
decomposition applied to the seismic trace intersecting well A.

the amplitude anomaly in the gas-bearing layer is much larger

than that in the dry layer, as shown by the red rectangle box
in Fig. 6(f).
From the model analysis, we can find that the amplitude
anomaly only exists in the gas-bearing layer in the seismic
amplitude anomaly sections calculated by the wavelet-based
cepstrum decomposition. The seismic amplitude anomaly section calculated by the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition
can thus detect the gas-bearing reservoir well.

A comparison of the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition

with the common spectrum decomposition methods based
on STFT and wavelet transform
How does the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition relate to
traditional spectrum decomposition methods, such as shortterm Fourier transform (STFT) or wavelet transform? Using
the seismic section intersecting well A as an example, we extract the seismic trace intersecting the most prolific gas well
A for analysis. Figure 7(a) shows this seismic trace. The study
area in which good gas production is obtained is also marked
by a red ellipse. In the spectrum of the seismic trace intersecting well A (Fig. 7b), we find that the dominant frequency of


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the seismic data is approximately 15 Hz. Then, wavelet-based

cepstrum decomposition is applied to the seismic trace intersecting well A. Because the sampling frequency is 500 Hz,
according to equation (7), the length of the sliding window
should be near 500/(2 15) = 16.7 and should also be a
power of 2. Thus, we select the length of the sliding window to be 16 in order to satisfy these two conditions. For the
whole seismic section intersecting well A, we also select the
length of the sliding window to be 16 for the wavelet-based
cepstrum decomposition.
The first common quefrency section Cw (1) extracted
by the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition is shown in
Fig. 8(a). With a sliding-window length of 16, the first common quefrency section Cw (1) is in the frequency range of (0,
500/(2 16) = 15.6) Hz. For a comparative analysis, we extract the common frequency section at 8 Hz by using STFT
and wavelet transform. Note that we calculate the common
frequency section at 8 Hz by using the average of the frequency ranges (0,16). For STFT, we use a Hamming window
with a length of 41 to extract the common frequency section
at 8 Hz. The common frequency section at 8 Hz extracted by
STFT is shown in Fig. 8(b). Figure 8(c) shows the common
frequency section at 8 Hz using the wavelet transform. Here,

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10 Y.-J. Xue et al.

Figure 8 The common frequency and frequency section of the seismic section intersecting well A. (a) The first common frequency section Cw (1)
extracted by wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition of the seismic section intersecting well A. The sliding-window length is 16. (b) The common
frequency section at 8 Hz extracted by STFT of the seismic section intersecting well A. A hamming window with a length of 41 is used. (c) The
common frequency section at 8 Hz extracted by wavelet transform of the seismic section intersecting well A. A Morlet wavelet is used. Note
that the results from the three methods are normalized for comparison.


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Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition 11

Figure 9 Seismic amplitude anomaly section intersecting well A using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition. The sliding-window length is 16.

Figure 10 Seismic amplitude anomaly section intersecting wells B and C using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition. The sliding-window
length is 16.

a Morlet wavelet is used. We normalized the results from

the three methods for comparison. Comparing Fig. 8(a) with
Fig. 8(b) and (c), we find that the main energy distribution
of the first common quefrency section Cw (1) is similar with
those of the common frequency sections at 8 Hz extracted
by STFT in Fig. 8(b) and wavelet transform in Fig. 8(c). This


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fact illustrates the effectiveness of the wavelet-based cepstrum

decomposition and its relation with traditional spectrum decomposition. We also find that the time resolution in the first
common quefrency section Cw (1) is higher than those in the
common frequency at 8 Hz extracted by STFT (Fig. 8b) and
wavelet transform (Fig. 8c).

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12 Y.-J. Xue et al.

Analysis of the seismic section intersecting gas well A

For the seismic trace intersecting well A in Fig. 7a, the seismic
amplitude anomalies trace, which was obtained by applying
equation (5) to one trace, is shown in Fig. 7(c). A considerable
amount of data is distributed in the area marked by the red ellipse, which suggests a strong amplitude anomaly. Combined
with the gas testing results, we know that, in the area marked
by the red ellipse, this strong amplitude anomaly is related to
high gas production.
Figure 9 shows the seismic amplitude anomaly section
intersecting well A using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition. As Fig. 9 shows, the largest cepstrum amplitude distribution occurs within the detection area shown by the red ellipse,
which suggests strong cepstrum amplitude anomalies. Excluding the effects of formation, lithology, and other factors, we
hypothesize that the strong cepstrum amplitude anomaly corresponds to the presence of hydrocarbon. The strong amplitude anomalies in the area set by the red ellipse indicates a
hydrocarbon-prone interpretation, which is consistent with
the high gas production in the well testing data and further
illustrates that the seismic amplitude anomaly section using
wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition in the area can be used
for hydrocarbon detection.
Analysis of the seismic section intersecting gas well B and
water well C
The seismic amplitude anomaly sections intersecting wells
B and C using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition are
shown in Fig. 10. The fact that the largest cepstrum amplitude
(yellow colour in Fig. 10) is distributed in the area where gas
well B is located illustrates that a strong cepstrum amplitude
anomaly exists. Excluding the effects of lithology and other
factors, we hypothesize that this strong amplitude anomaly is
related to hydrocarbons and is consistent with the high gas
production in the well testing data. A larger cepstrum amplitude (blue colour in Fig. 10) is distributed in the area where
water well C located. The cepstrum amplitude anomaly in the
area where water well C located is not as obvious as that in
the area where gas well B is located. The difference of the
characteristics of the gas- and water-bearing wells is clearly
reflected in the seismic amplitude anomaly section extracted
by the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition.
CONCLUSIONS
In terms of how to use cepstrum analysis for exploration
seismology, the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition is


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proposed and discussed in this paper. The key factor in

wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition is the choice of the
sliding-window length, which also determines the frequency
ranges used in the cepstrum decomposition. The other factor
that limits the ability of the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition method to employ more variable frequency ranges is
that the sliding-window length must be a power of 2. Note
that the common quefrency section is generated by a frequency
band instead of a frequency. By comparison of the common
quefrency section extracted by wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition with the common frequency section extracted
by traditional spectrum decomposition methods, we demonstrate the effectiveness of wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition. By the definition of seismic amplitude anomaly section
extracted by the wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition, the
usage of the first and second common quefrency sections
(Cw (1) and Cw (2), respectively) for reservoir characterization
and hydrocarbon detection is proposed, and its effectiveness
is confirmed by the model test and the seismic data acquired
from the Sulige gas field. Wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition offers an easier way for using the cepstrum amplitude
anomaly related to the quefrency information for reservoir
characterization and hydrocarbon detection compared with
conventional spectral decomposition methods, and it provides
a new field of processing and interpreting seismic reflection
data. Further research, particularly if applied to other datasets,
will contribute to a better understanding of the advantages
and the practical restrictions of this method.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grants 41430323, 41404102,
41274128, 41304080, and 61401047; by the Project of
the Scientific Research Foundation of CUIT under Grant
KYTZ201503; and by the 2015 Annual Young Academic
Leaders Scientific Research Foundation of CUIT under Grant
J201507. The authors would like to thank the anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments, and the Editor-inChief for his interest in this work and comments.

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