Overview of Seismic Attribute Analysis in Shale Plays

Schuelke, James S.

doi:10.5724/gcs.11.31.0806

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Natural fractures can also affect reservoir performance in a negative way. For example, large natural fractures in the Barnett Shale may connect to the underlying Ellenburger aquifer (Schuelke, 2011). Structural deformation seen on seismic data (Figures 6 and 9), the tectonic history derived from outcrop studies (Portas-Arroyal, 2009) along with detailed core descriptions indicate that major, multistage tectonic activity affected the Woodford Shale resulting in highly deformed areas and a heterogeneous distribution of natural fractures in the study area.…”

Section: Tectonic Deformation and Natural Fracture Distributionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Portas-Arroyal (2009) presented a multiscale study highlighting fractures within the Woodford Shale and directly correlates potential fracture zones identified from seismic attributes with the fracture zones identified on the outcrop. Schuelke (2011) used a set of attributes to map drilling geohazards and showed how curvature volumes can be used to link natural fractures in shales to hydraulic fracture performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Seismic attribute driven integrated characterization of the Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The organic-rich, silty Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma is a prolific resource play producing gas and liquid hydrocarbons. We calibrated seismic attributes and prestack inversion using well logs and core information within a seismic geomorphologic framework to define the overall basin architecture, major stratigraphic changes, and related variations in lithologies. Core measurements of elastic moduli and total organic content (TOC) indicated that the Woodford Shale can be broken into three elastic petrotypes important to well completion and hydrocarbon enrichment. Upscaling these measurements facilitates regional mapping of petrotypes from prestack seismic inversion of surface data. Seismic attributes highlight rugged topography of the basin floor of the Paleo Woodford Sea, which controls the lateral and vertical distribution of different lithofacies containing variable quantity of TOC as well as quartz, which controls brittleness. Depressions on the basin floor contain TOC-lean cherty lithofacies alternating with TOC-rich lithofacies, resulting in brittle-ductile rock couplets. In contrast, basin floor highs are characterized by overall TOC-rich ductile lithofacies. Seismic attributes illuminate complex post-Woodford tectonic deformation. The Woodford Shale is known to be naturally fractured on outcrop. Image log analysis in other shale plays showed a good correlation between such tectonic features and natural fractures. These features need to be correlated with well trajectories and production data to determine which hypothesized "fracture sets," if any, improve well performance.

show abstract

Section: Tectonic Deformation and Natural Fracture Distributionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seismic attribute driven integrated characterization of the Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Studies have shown that the major fault exerted significant control on the depositional patterns and thermal history of the Barnett (Qi et al, 2014). The small-scale faulting controls karstification in the Ellenburger, resulting in the well-known "string of pearls" pattern seen on seismic coherence images (Schuelke, 2011). The Barnett Shale of the FWB, Texas, has played an important role in a gas-shale play in North America.…”

Section: Geologic Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volumetric aberrancy to map subtle faults and flexures

Xuan

Marfurt

2017

SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One of the key tasks of a seismic interpreter is to map lateral changes in surfaces, not only including faults, folds, and flexures, but also incisements, diapirism, and dissolution features. Volumetrically, coherence provides rapid visualization of faults and curvature provides rapid visualization of folds and flexures. Aberrancy measures the lateral change (or gradient) of curvature along a picked or inferred surface. Aberrancy complements curvature and coherence. In normally faulted terrains, the aberrancy anomaly will track the coherence anomaly and fall between the most positive curvature anomaly defining the footwall and the most negative curvature anomaly defining the hanging wall. Aberrancy can delineate faults whose throw falls below the seismic resolution or is distributed across a suite of smaller conjugate faults that do not exhibit a coherence anomaly. Previously limited to horizon computations, we extend aberrancy to uninterpreted seismic data volumes. We apply our volumetric aberrancy calculation to a data volume acquired over the Barnett Shale gas reservoir of the Fort Worth Basin, Texas. In this area, the Barnett Shale is bound on the top by the Marble Falls Limestone and on the bottom by the Ellenburger Dolomite. Basement faulting controls karstification in the Ellenburger, resulting in the well-known "string of pearls" pattern seen on coherence images. Aberrancy delineates small karst features, which are, in many places, too smoothly varying to be detected by coherence. Equally important, aberrancy provides the azimuthal orientation of the fault and flexure anomalies.

show abstract

References

2018

Seismic Attributes as the Framework for Data Integration Throughout the Oilfield Life Cycle

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Overview of Seismic Attribute Analysis in Shale Plays

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Seismic attribute driven integrated characterization of the Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma

Seismic attribute driven integrated characterization of the Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma

Volumetric aberrancy to map subtle faults and flexures

References

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About