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CHAPTER EIGHT 247

Horizon and
Formation Attributes
T he last few years (since the publication of the Third Edition of this book) have Classification of
seen an enormous increase in the number of attributes available and their use. Attributes
Attributes are used to pursue studies in structure, in stratigraphy and in reservoir
properties. Therefore this chapter can be viewed as an extension of Chapters 3, 4
and 7.
An attribute is necessarily a derivative of a basic seismic measurement. All the
horizon and formation attributes available (Figure 8-1) are not independent of
each other but simply different ways of presenting and studying a limited amount
of basic information. That basic information is time, amplitude, frequency and
attenuation and these form the basis of our attribute classification.
As a broad generalization time-derived attributes provide structural informa-
tion, amplitude-derived attributes provide stratigraphic and reservoir information.
Frequency-derived attributes are not yet well understood but there is widespread
optimism that they will provide additional useful stratigraphic and reservoir infor-
mation. Attenuation is not used today but there is a possibility that in the future it
will yield information on permeability. Most attributes are derived from the nor-
mal stacked and migrated data volume but variations of basic measurements as a
function of angle of incidence (and hence source to receiver offset) provides a fur-
ther source of information. The principal examples of these pre-stack attributes are
AVO.
Post-stack attributes can be extracted along one horizon or summed over a win-
dow (Figure 8-1). The latter provides the concept of a formation attribute. In some
cases the window is a constant flat time interval so that the display is effectively a
thick time slice, sometimes termed a stat (statistical) slice. The window may be of a
constant time interval but hung from one structurally-interpreted horizon so that
the window properly follows a reservoir interval. The window may also be the
interval between two structurally-interpreted horizons, for example the top and
the base reservoir reflections. Within the window values may be summed to pro-
duce a gross attribute measurement, only some of the information may be extract-
ed to provide a selection attribute, or the variation of the attribute within the win-
dow may be measured to assess a distribution. Hybrid attributes are an intriguing
combination of amplitude and frequency information. Many examples of the uses
of these different types of attributes are provided in this chapter, but not every
attribute in Figure 8-1 is illustrated. Some of those listed have yet to be under-
stood. A more extensive, but in the author’s view less useful, attribute classifica-
tion has been published by Chen (1997).
Attributes normally are calculated and extracted from the data volume following
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Fig. 8-1. Seismic attributes derived from or related to the basic seismic information of
time, amplitude, frequency and attenuation. Window can be constant time interval,
constant interval hung from one horizon or interval between two horizons.
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Fig. 8-2. Raw time structure

map from Gippsland Basin,
offshore SE Australia with
value from every live trace.
Time range is 1100ms to
1400ms. (Courtesy Land-
mark Graphics Corporation
and BHP Petroleum Pty. Ltd.)

Fig.8-3. Residual map from

Gippsland Basin created by
subtracting raw and spatial-
ly-smoothed horizon times.
The NNW-SSE trends around
crosslines 160 and 220 are
faults; blue is upthrown side
and red is downthrown side.
The E-W linear trends are
caused by data collection
irregularities. (Courtesy
Landmark Graphics Corpo-
ration and BHP Petroleum
Pty. Ltd.)
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250
Fig. 8-4. Time slice at
1020ms from Dollarhide
field in west Texas show-
ing in green the outline of
the area mapped in Fig-
ures 8-5 and 8-6. (Cour-
tesy Unocal North Ameri-
can Oil & Gas Division.)
Page 250
Fig. 8-5. (Opposite Top)
Time structure map on
Devonian reflection using
raw times from automatic
horizon tracking. (Cour-
tesy Unocal North Ameri-
can Oil & Gas Division.)
Fig. 8-6. (Opposite Bot-
tom) Residual map creat-
ed by subtracting the raw
and spatially-smoothed
time maps. Note particu-
larly the lineations which
fit existing fault patterns.
(Courtesy Unocal North
American Oil & Gas Divi-
sion.)
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Fig. 8-7. Residual map

from Eromanga Basin,
South Australia. The linear
blue features indicate
grabens in the early Cre-
taceous C horizon occur-
ring in this area around
1100ms. (Courtesy San-
tos Ltd.)

Fig. 8-8. Residual map on

the DN horizon from Ero-
manga Basin, South Aus-
tralia. The red and yellow
patches indicate high
spatial frequency drape
over underlying bodies of
calcified sandstone.
(Courtesy Santos Ltd.)
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Fig. 8-9. Dip map on the

C horizon from Eromanga
Basin, South Australia.
Note the double lineations
indicating conjugate pairs
of faults which corre-
spond to the grabens of
Figure 8-7. (Courtesy San-
tos Ltd.)
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Fig. 8-10. Dip map of top Fig. 8-11. (Opposite Top)

reservoir reflection from
Oman indicating large
number of arcuate
faults.(Courtesy Petrole-
um Development Oman
LLC.)
Same dip map as Figure
8-10 with manually-drawn
red polygons around the
significant dip anomalies.
These polygons were then
used in the final mapping
of top reservoir. (Courtesy
Petroleum Development
Oman LLC.)

Fig. 8-12. (Opposite Bot-

tom) Vertical section
along yellow line in Fig-
ures 8-10 and 8-11. The
blue horizon is top reser-
voir. A few sections like
this one were used to vali-
date faulting identified on
the dip map. (Courtesy
Petroleum Development
Oman LLC.)