3-D physical modeling of a complex salt canopy
- Marathon Oil Co., Littleton, CO (United States)
- Univ. of Houston, TX (United States). Allied Geophysical Labs.
Recent drilling has confirmed both significant reservoir potential and the presence of commercial hydrocarbons below salt structures in the Gulf of Mexico. Obtaining definitive seismic images with standard processing schemes beneath these salt structures is very difficult if not impossible. Because of the complicated seismic behavior of these structures, full volume 3-D prestack depth migration is required. Unfortunately, carrying out the multitude of calculations needed to create a proper image requires the largest and fastest supercomputers and rather complex numerical algorithms. Furthermore, developing and testing the imaging algorithms is quite involved and requires appropriate test data sets. To better understand the problems and issues of subsalt imaging, Marathon Oil Company and Louisiana Land and Exploration Company contracted with the University of Houston`s Allied Geophysical Laboratories (AGL) to construct a salt canopy physical model. The model is patterned after the SEG/EAEG Salt Model and is made from synthetic materials. It is a full three-dimensional model with an irregularly shaped, lateral salt structure embedded in five distinct sedimentary layers. The model was used to acquire a multi-offset 3-D marine-style survey. These data are being used to address problems of subsalt imaging. In addition to standard processing techniques, the authors investigate algorithms for multiple removal and prestack depth migration.
- OSTI ID:
- 413548
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960525--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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