Seismic Crosscorrelation Theory

The Crosscorrelation Correlation Coefficient parameter measures how close the traces of two volumes are to each other (see Covariance and Correlation Theory). It can measure the differences caused by survey process differences to show what needs to be calibrated out. After calibration has been completed, crosscorrelation can measure the production-caused time changes that correspond to different pressures and temperatures. See the Crosscorrelation process. Note that, within the geophysical field, the term is usually shown as one world, but outside the geophysical field, the term may be hyphenated: cross-correlation. Crosscorrelation is a basic signal processing technique that is used in seismic data processing and other engineering and scientific fields. You design time windows for the trace pairs and extract the amplitudes for analysis.

Note that multiplying two identical traces gives maximum values (since peaks are multiplied with peaks and troughs with troughs), while multiplying traces that are the opposite gives minimal values (troughs multiplied with peaks).

Seismic crosscorrelation can be based on either: A Reference volume: This is the approach for time-lapse seismic analysis. You match a stationary referenc to a corresponding sliding trace from the input (monitor) survey. This is first done as non-production differences between the two surveys. Then it is done after calibratio differences. Neighboring traces: You can see how much a survey's traces change over short geographical distances b its neighboring traces. Then you must set a rolling window size (see below) to set w

Rolling Windows

Procedure: Setting the Parameters

If we are comparing pre-calibrated volumes, then we assume that the signal to noise ratios of the two volumes is the same. A time shift (or lag) is applied to the sliding trace relative to the stationary trace, usually according to a maximum shift parameter. This time shift is set by the size of the Correlation window (i.e. the sampling window). Samples from the reference volume that are outside of the correlation window for an input sample are not compared to that sample.

Correlation windows are usually set within an Analysis window. This Analysis window is the entire range of data being crosscorrelated (all data above and below this window is uncorrelated). Its size will control the number of correlation windows, and therefore also the number of cross-correlated samples.

Performing the Crosscorrelation

The values for the two traces that have been aligned within the window are multiplied together and summed to produce a total for the initial lag value (so the process creates a dot product). Then the sliding trace is shifted down one sample and a new dot product is computed. Using the point where the two traces are originally aligned as the zero lag position, we plot the dot product for each lag value. Then the relative position of the maximum dot product relative to the zero lag position determines the best time shift between the trace pairs. We can also determine the relative phase by the symmetry of the results.

 The final result:

Autocorrelation Results
The cross correlation of two identical inputs is called autocorrelation. The peak value of an autocorrelation is usually normalized to 1.0. It is centered at zero time (the zero lag position). The autocorrelation is always symmetrical, as the negative and positive lags match each other.

Crosscorrelation Results
When you crosscorrelate two different datasets, the normalized crosscorrelation coefficient values are less than 1.0. The value of 1.0 indicates a perfect match (e.g. the cross plot of these amplitudes would be a straight line). The less similar the traces are, the lower the coefficient becomes, to a minimum of 0 (this function measures the r2 parameter). Therefore, if you crosscorrelate the base survey and the monitor survey, any low coefficients can indicate the effects of production. 4

A very low value suggests either a serious error in one volume (such as faulty processing) or that production has drastically altered the reservoir, perhaps to the point of faulting the zones. A zero value shows no correlation at all (e.g. the relationship between the two volumes is completely random), which likely means that you have loaded and rebinned the wrong volume. If the two traces are identical except for a time shift, the result will be a symmetrical autocorrelation shifted in time with the peak of the correlation centered about this time difference (instead of at zero time). If the two traces are identical except for a phase shift, the resulting correlation function is asymmetrical and not centered at the zero lag position.

Russell-Liang Method
As both time shifts and phase shifts can affect the correlation similarly, there are no unique solutions as to which is causing what correlation effect. However, the Russell-Liang technique (Bishop and Nunns, 1994) can help resolve this problem. Note: this method is for phase and time shifts. The Russell-Liang method was developed to determine the shifts required to match intersecting 2D lines. In PRO4D, we use overlapping 3D vintages instead of 2D lines, but the results are the same: we determine the shifts that exist between the two vintages. The Russell-Liang method uses a sliding time window (a shallow one avoids steeply dipping reflections) to compare traces. The method calculates the crosscorrelation with time lag between the two traces. Then the method calculates the envelope and instantaneous phase for the crosscorrelation function. The peak of the envelope gives the optimum time lag, which is used as the time shift. The derived phase rotation is used for the phase analysis. The peak value of the correlation envelope for the optimum time is the crosscorrelation coefficient. The correlation length should be at least the length of the wavelet in samples. You will need a crosscorrelation made between the two surveys. 1. Make the time pick on the envelope amplitude of the crosscorrelation traces (e.g. time 0). This will be phase-invariant.

2. Determine the phase shift by calculating the instantaneous phase of the crosscorrelation traces and extracting the phase that corresponds to the time of the envelope maximum. In the example below, the phase shift is 90.

We determine the global values by averaging the phase and time for each bin location.