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Seismic attributes revisited
M. Turhan Taner*, Seismic Research Corporation, James S. Schuelke, Mobil Oil
Corporation, Ronen O’Doherty, Seismic Research Corporation, and Edip Baysal,
Turkish Petroleum Corporation
SUMMARY
Since their introduction in early 1970’s seismic attributes
have become one of the most commonly used and powerful
terpretation tools. In earlier applications they were considered
as a management display tool. This view has changed rapidly
as their use in interpretation expanded. Results were analyzed
in a qualitative manner. Recently, as evidenced from increasing
number of papers, attribute use finally became more
tive through calibration with well bore measurements. In this
paper we will present a review of basic attributes, their recently
introduced derivatives and their expected significance. We will
also classify them with respect to their computation and their
end use. We define all seismically driven parameters as the
mic Attributes. They can be velocity, amplitude, rate of change
of any of them with respect to time or space and so on. They
can be computed from pre-stack or post stack data sets. Some
of the attributes computed from complex traces such as
lope, phase and etc. correspond to the various measurements
of the propagating wave-front. We will call those the
cal Attributes”. These attributes may be used for prediction or
extrapolation of lithological or reservoir characteristics. Others
are computed from the reflection configurations and
ity. We will call these “Geometric Attributes”. These are used
in structural and stratigraphic interpretation. In this paper we
will confine ourselves to the classification and definition of the
attributes and their possible uses. We will give examples from
different geological settings.
INTRODUCTION
Instantaneous characteristics of time series have been the
subject of investigations in electrical engineering for a long
time. (1946) introduced a hybrid frequency/time do-
main computation by the use of analytic wavelets. This method
was later introduced to the Geophysical community by Morlet
et al (1982). 1948) studied the analytic signals,
del (1974) d iscusse6 the interpretation of instantaneous
q uencies. Rihaczek (1968) reported the signal energy
tion in time and frequency domains. More recently Jones and
1990) presented the analysis of instantaneous
an6 instantaneous bandwidth. Seismic attributes were
introduced around 1970 as useful displays to help interpret the
seismic data in a qualitative way. (1970) published the
first paper on the computation and display of envelope and
frequency spectrum of in color. He used a hybrid
analogue and digital system to derive the sonagrams. About
the same time Anstey introduced laser generated
color displays of digitally computed seismic attributes: Interval
velocity, the reflection strength and mean frequency. Both
have computed the envelope in the manner of radio wave
reception. The reflection strength was the result of low pass
rectified seismic traces. Later Taner, Koehler and Anstey
(1973) considered wave propagation as the integral of the
harmonic motions, hence the recorded signal represented
the kinetic portion of the energy flux. Thus the computation of
the potential component becomes possible by the development
of the frequency and time domain Hilbert transform programs.
Taner et al (1979) published their findings and established in-
attributes which became as an industry-wide
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terpretation tool. Practical applications of the attributes were
presented by Taner and Sheriff Robertson and Nogami
(1984) and Robertson and Fisher (1988). Relationship between
seismic attributes and their Fourier transform
teristics were reported by Robertson Bodine (1984)
and later by Ha et al (1991). Some of the statistical
erties were reported by White (1991). Barnes (1991, 1992)
introduced instantaneous dominant frequency, bandwidth and
Q estimation. The use of geometrical attributes were presented
by Rijks and Jauffred (1991). and Oldenburg (1988)
showed the computation of local phase velocities from complex
seismic data.
The study and interpretation of seismic attributes gives some
qualitative information of the geometry and the physical
eters of the subsurface. A number of recently published papers
have been concerned with the calibration of seismic attributes
for reservoir delineation and lithologic prediction. While some
of them failed to mention the specific attributes used in the
calibration, it indicates the increased success rate of
cal prediction. It should be noted that the amplitude content
of seismic data is the principal factor for physical parameter
determination, such as the acoustic impedance, reflection
velocities, absorption, etc. The phase component is
the principal factor in determining the shapes of the reflectors,
their geometrical configurations and etc. In one of his lectures
in the late Sangree stated that “we have been
ing only 20 percent of the seismic data. With the advent of
seismic attributes this went up to 35 percent”. Our objective
is to extract as much information as possible and to bring this
utilization as close to 100 percent as possible.
ATTRIBUTE CLASSIFICATION
Seismic attributes are defined as “any or all observations’
extracted from seismic data which directly or indirectly help
hydrocarbon explorations”. These can be in the form of
amplitudes, reflection times, reflection configurations and
etc. We divide the attributes into two general categories;
A Geometrical attributes or Reflection configuration,
B Physical attributes or Reflection characteristics.
GEOMETRICAL ATTRIBUTES:
Geometrical attributes are generally utilized in seismic
graphic interpretation and for fault or structural interpretation
of 3-D data volumes. Their objective is to enhance the
to the interpreter of geometrical characteristics of
mic events. Picked event times provide information for event
terminations, continuity, curvature, concordant or chaotic
unconformities, faults, dips, dip azimuths, etc.
bedding areas are identified by the small deviations of
dips and higher mean lateral coherency computed over
time mean dip zone indicate horizontal
parallel bedding patterns. Larger deviations of dips with larger
mean coherencies indicate diverging or converging bedding
eas. Zones of dip changes indicate possible angular
mities and small faults. Chaotic zones are identified by the
deviation and by low lateral coherencies.
 Seismic attributes revisited
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PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES
Physical attributes, used for lithological and reservoir char-
acteristics interpretation, are divided into two subclasses;
1) Attributes computed from seismic data planes (two di-
mensional sense). These attributes are computed from analytic
traces and are the most commonly used attributes. They in-
clude the trace envelope and its first and second derivatives, in-
stantaneous phase, instantaneous frequency, instantaneous ac-
celeration, apparent polarity, band width, instantaneous Q, and
their statistics computed along reflectors over a time window.
Thin bed indicators are computed from anomalous changes of
instantaneous phase. Instantaneous attributes computed at the
maxima of the trace envelopes are called the “Principal” at-
tributes. Some authors calls them “Response” attributes (Bo-
dine,1984). These attributes relate to the statistics of wavelet
Fourier transforms (Robertson, 1984; Bodine, 1984; Barnes,
1991).
2) Attributes computed from pre-stack data, which reflect
variation of various attributes with offset, such as amplitude
and instantaneous frequency. We also compute the NMO, in-
terval P-wave and shear wave velocities estimates event time
and amplitude variation with respect to the offset. Stack sec-
tions represent the simple mean of the offset varying attributes,
hence the standard deviation, mean values and gradients com-
puted from pre-stack data give insight to their validity and
lithological composition. Since most of the computations con-
tain considerable amount of noise, signal to noise improvement
of data or the attributes is necessary. Two types of signal to
noise improvement will be presented; one by local slant stacks
and the second one by a moving 2-D window.
SIGNIFICANCE OF SEISMIC ATTRIBUTES
Geometrical attributes were developed as direct consequence
of lectures given by Vail and Sangree on sequence stratigraphy.
They will help with physical attributes in interpreting the dis-
continuity surfaces, sequence boundaries, depositional settings,
bedding patterns etc.
Physical attributes, on the other hand, give information
more related to the physical parameters of the subsurface;
l Envelope : Indicate major lithology changes, unconformi-
ties, gas and fluid accumulation
l Derivatives of envelope: Indicate effects of absorption,
sharpness of events, correlation tool
l Instantaneous phase: Event continuity, structu ral and strati-
graphic configuration
l Instantaneous frequency: Frequency signature of events,
effects of absorption and fracturing, depositional thick-
nesses
l Instantaneous acceleration: Thin bed effects, possible poros-
ity
l Dominant frequency: Similar to instantaneous frequency,
reflection correlation tool
l Instantaneous band width: Absorption effects, correlation
tool
l Instantaneous Q factor: Direct estimate of absorption ef-
fects, fracture, gas zone and possible permeability indica-
tor
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l Normalized amplit ude: Correlation and event tracking tool,
event termination indicator
l Dip of maximu m coherency, coherency: Indicator for
allel, diverging or converging bedding, chaotic zone
cator
l Apparent polarity: Differentiate between different type of
bright spots, section polarity indicator
CONCLUSIONS
We have given the classification of the attributes and de-
scribe their possible significance in the interpretation process.
We have also introduced new attributes both in physical and
in geometrical categories. Our next objective is to investigate
using real data conditions and report their actual significance
in reservoir delineation and lithology prediction.
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