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Hua-wei Zhou
University of Houston
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SEE PROFILE
Practical Seismic
Data Analysis
HUA-WEI ZHOU
University of Houston
iv
CONTENTS
Preface
page ix
Pre-processing
Normal moveout analysis
Box 2.1 Evaluation of NMO stretch
2.3 Convolution and correlation
2.4 Noise suppression methods
2.5 Correction for near-surface statics
Box 2.2 Raypaths of a rst arrival
Box 2.3 A synthetic example of waveeld datuming
2.6 Summary
Further reading
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vi
Contents
Digital lters
5.1
Deconvolution
6.1
Predictive deconvolution
Box 6.1 Predictive deconvolution for image enhancement
6.2 Frequency domain deconvolution
6.3 Adaptive deconvolution
Box 6.2 Graphic illustration of stationary and non-stationary
convolutions
6.4 Minimum entropy deconvolution
6.5 An example of deterministic deconvolution
Box 6.3 Making synthetic seismograms for seismicwell tie
6.6 Summary
Further reading
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vii
Contents
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8.1
10
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References
Index
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477
10.1
viii
PREFACE
Seismic data analysis transfers seismic records measured at the surface or along wellbores
into imagery, estimates, and models of subsurface structures and properties. It covers
the topics of digital seismic data processing, seismic migration, and subsurface model
building that are useful in both exploration geophysics and solid Earth geophysics. Although
several excellent books have covered these topics either from the viewpoint of exploration
geophysics or that of solid Earth geophysics, I was motivated to write this book to deal with
common seismic analysis methods for both aspects of geophysics. This book is intended
as an introductory text on common and practical methods in seismic data analysis.
Most of the materials for this book originated as lecture notes for graduate courses in
geophysics at University of Houston and Texas Tech University. Students on these courses
usually have a variety of backgrounds: many are recent graduates from geophysics, geology, engineering, computer sciences, or other physical science disciplines, and others are
employees in the petroleum industry. They intend to apply seismic data analysis skills to
problems in exploration geophysics, solid Earth geophysics, and engineering and environmental sciences. Although they may have access to some commercial or free software in
seismic processing, most of these students have not gone through a systematic review of
common approaches to seismic data analysis and the practical limitations of each method.
Hence, an effort has been made in this book to emphasize concepts and practicality of
common seismic analysis methods using tutorial and case examples or schematic plots.
The rst six chapters of the book prepare the background and deal mostly with time
processing. Chapter 1 introduces seismic data and issues of sampling, amplitude, and phase.
Chapter 2 addresses pre-processing of reection seismic data using examples on normal
moveout (NMO) analysis, noise suppression, and near-surface statics. The topics of discrete
Fourier transform and wavelet transfer are both discussed in Chapter 3 in terms of the law
of decomposition and superposition. Chapter 4 is devoted to the meaning and assessment of
seismic resolution and delity. Chapter 5 discusses ltering of time series using z-transform
and Fourier transform methods. Chapter 6 covers several common deconvolution methods.
Each of the nal four chapters may be studied independently: Chapters 7 to 9 are on
three main branches of seismic data analysis, and Chapter 10 covers several special topics.
Chapter 7 introduces several seismic migration methods that have served as the main subsurface seismic imaging tools in exploration geophysics. Chapter 8 is on seismic velocity
analysis using semblance, migration, and tomography. Chapter 9 discusses the basic issues
and relationship between seismic modeling and inversion. Chapter 10 addresses processing
issues in topics of seismic data acquisition, suppressing of multiple reections, seismic
velocity anisotropy, multi-component seismic data, and seismic attributes.
Each chapter starts with an overview paragraph describing the sections to follow. Terms
dened are indicated by bold font. For students, it is especially important to comprehend
the meaning of common terms and concepts in the eld because this often reects the
depth of their understanding. A large number of gures are given that illustrate concepts or
ix
Preface
applications. Several boxes are provided in each chapter to examine specic case studies
or ideas. There is an exercise at the end of each main section. Each chapter ends with a
summary of key concepts, and a list of further reading. All serious learners should read
several technical papers from the suggested reading lists, to draw connections between the
issues covered by the chapter and the reference papers.
The mathematical content has been kept to a minimum, although I assume that readers
are comfortable with basic calculus and linear algebra including matrices. Most parts of
the book should be readable by those with an undergraduate degree in physical science
or engineering. Readers without much mathematical training should focus on the main
concepts and physical meanings.
This book could not have been completed without the encouragement of Dr. Robert E.
Sheriff, my colleague and mentor. I would like to thank my fellow geophysicists for granting
permission to reproduce gures from their publications. I acknowledge the assistance
of many people in the preparation of this book, especially those students who provided
feedback. I particularly thank Kurt Marfurt, Oong Youn, Mike Thornton, Zhihui Zou, Fang
Yuan, and Wendy Zhang. This book is dedicated to my parents.
Chapter contents
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
Summary
Further reading
The discipline of subsurface seismic imaging, or mapping the subsurface using seismic
waves, takes a remote sensing approach to probe the Earths interior. It measures
ground motion along the surface and in wellbores, then puts the recorded data through
a series of data processing steps to produce seismic images of the Earths interior in
terms of variations in seismic velocity and density. The ground movements recorded by
seismic sensors (such as geophones and seismometers onshore, or hydrophones and
ocean bottom seismometers offshore) contain information on the medias response to
the seismic wave energy that traverses them. Hence the rst topic of this chapter is
on seismic data and its acquisition, processing, and interpretation processes. Because
nearly all modern seismic data are in digital form in order to be stored and analyzed
in computers, we need to learn several important concepts about sampled time series
such as sampling rate and aliasing; the latter is an artifact due to under-sampling. In
exploration seismology, many useful and quantiable properties of seismic data are
called seismic attributes. Two of the most common seismic attributes are the amplitude
and phase of seismic wiggles. They are introduced here together with relevant processing
issues such as gain control, phase properties of wavelets, and the Hilbert transform,
1.1
1.1.1
Acquisition
Data QC
Processing
Imaging
Modeling
Interpretation
waves, mostly P-waves, in their transmission, reection, diffraction, refraction, and turning
processes. The processing of other seismic data and many non-seismic data often follows
similar principles.
The purpose of acquiring and processing seismic data is to learn something about the
Earths interior. To understand certain aspects of the Earth, we initially need to gure
out some specic relations between the intended targets and measurable parameters. Then
our rst step is to conduct data acquisition designed for the problem, our second step
to use data processing to identify and enhance the desired signal, and our third step to
conduct data interpretations based on the processed data. In reality, the processes of data
acquisition, processing and interpretation are interconnected and complement each other;
their relationship may be viewed as shown in Figure 1.1.
After data acquisition and before data processing, we need to conduct the process of
data quality control, or QC. This involves checking the survey geometry, data format, and
consistency between different components of the dataset, and assuring ourselves that the
quality and quantity of the dataset are satisfactory for our study objectives. The data QC
process is typically part of the pre-processing. After pre-processing to suppress various
kinds of noise in the data, seismic imaging is conducted to produce various forms of
imagery for the interpretation process. The seismic imaging methods include seismic
migration, seismic tomography, and many other methods of extracting various seismic
attributes. Some people call seismic imaging methods the advanced processing. The scope
of this book covers the entire procedure from pre-processing to seismic imaging.
After data interpretation, we often conduct seismic modeling using the interpreted model
and the real data geometry to generate predictions to compare with the real measurements,
and hence further verify the interpretation. The three inner arrows shown in Figure 1.1 show
how the interactions between each pair of components (namely the data QC, imaging, or
modeling processes) are inuenced by the third component.
1.1.2
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
S
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R
Figure 1.2 Cross-section views of two seismic data acquisition spreads and raypaths.
1.1.3