Methods of Generation of Fracture Density Maps from Seismic Data

Abstract

A method is herein presented to statistically combine multiple seismic attributes for generating a map of the spatial density of fractures. According to an embodiment a first step involves interpreting the formation of interest in 3D seismic volume first to create its time structure map. The second step is creating depth structure of the formation of interest from its time structure map. In this application geostatistical methods have been used for depth conversional, although other methods could be used instead. The third step is extraction of a number of attributes, such as phase, frequency and amplitudes, from the time structure map. The next step is to project the fracture density onto the top of the target formation. The final step is to combine these attributes using a statistical method known as Multi-variant non-linear regression to predict fracture density.