AVO and Beyond - Quantitative Seismic Amplitude Interpretation (GPH11)

Description

In its early days the AVO method has been seen as a potential golden bullet for exploration prospect de-risking. Nowadays - and a lot of dry wells later - we know that there are many possible situations where geology can generate traps for those interpreting AVO anomalies too naively.
Nevertheless AVO and its successors and improvements have greatly changed our understanding of the subsurface. Using pre-stack inversion and anisotropic imaging we can now better characterise the subsurface. Especially in a development environment where a lot of well control is available, this can lead to great enhancement of characterising the inter-well space. Temporal changes in seismic amplitudes recorded by time lapse seismic can be related to production effects and integrated in the reservoir simulation. Amplitude variation with azimuth and angle bears the potential to characterise the properties of the fracture network so important in many reservoirs.
So despite the slight disillusionment after the first euphoria in AVO interpretation, the quantitative interpretation of seismic amplitudes bears great potential for future subsurface characterisation.
In this course we will start from a solid understanding of the basics, but we will go on to review further developments, starting from elastic impedance, over pre-stack AVO inversion and the use of amplitude variations with azimuth for estimation of anisotropy that can be used in imaging and fracture characterisation.

Course Level: Skill
Duration: 3 days
Instructor: Christian Stotter

Designed for you, if you are...

A geophysicist or geologist, who uses quantitative seismic interpretation in daily work and who wants to gain a solid understanding of the AVO method and recent developments
An exploration geoscientist, who needs to incorporate AVO results in prospect de-risking
A geomodeller, who uses quantitative seismic interpretation results for property or facies modelling

How we build your confidence

We will review the history and foundation of the AVO method and develop from this an understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the method
This will be accompanied by case studies and practical examples in Python notebooks
The hands-on experience will be useful for the application of the learned themes in the day-to-day business and give an introduction to modern geo-computing
Going beyond the usual AVO topics will accustom you with latest developments of amplitude based seismic interpretation

The benefits from attending

By the end of the course you will have a good understanding of the possibilities and limitations of amplitude-based quantitative seismic interpretation. With that foundation you will feel confident to:

Model basic AVO responses from well log data
Classify AVO responses
Understand and apply AVO anomalies for prospect de-risking
Judge the amplitude fidelity of pre- and post-stack seismic volumes
Assess the effectiveness of recent developments in quantitative interpretation for your field development or exploration study

Topics

Amplitude versus offset basics
- From bright spots to AVO anomalies
- Wave equation, Zoeppritz and simplifications
- AVO classifications
- AVO attributes and crossplotting
- Use and misuse of AVO
A digression on amplitude preserved processing
From AVO to elastic impedance
Pre-stack inversion
Amplitude versus azimuth applications in
- Anisotropic imaging
- Fracture characterisation
- Geomechanical applications
Time lapse amplitude changes
Full waveform inversion - an outlook