Imaging faults in 3D seismic volumes
Geoffrey A. Dorn, Benjamin Kadlec and Patty Murtha, TerraSpark Geosciences LLC
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Summary
Faults interpretation is required step in most seismic
interpretations. Unlike horizons, which are imaged by
reflections in the seismic volume, faults are typically
imaged as discontinuities in the data. For many years faults
were interpreted by visual recognition of discontinuities in
the seismic data, which were then manually interpreted as
fault cuts on seismic sections. The purpose of our work was
to develop an attribute algorithm which images faults with
sufficient accuracy, precision, and continuity to enable
automatic extraction or autotracking of faults in a 3D
attribute volume, much like horizons have been autotracked
for years in 3D seismic volumes.
Introduction
Figure 1 shows a vertical section from a 3D survey in the
Gulf of Mexico, offshore Louisiana. Most faults, as
illustrated in this figure, are represented as discontinuities
in the seismic volume. In early 3D interpretation systems
faults were identified by the interpreter as discontinuities in
the seismic data, and individual fault cuts were manually
interpreted on a sparse set of inlines and crosslines.
Figure 1: Line 184 from a survey in the Grand Isle area,
offshore Louisiana, Gulf of Mexico. Note the numerous
steeply dipping normal faults (arrows) indicated by
discontinuities in the seismic reflections.
Volumetric imaging of faults based on attributes that image
discontinuities in the seismic volume began at several
energy companies in the early to mid-1990s. The most
well-known of these research efforts was at Amoco
(Bahorich et al., 1995), and resulted in the development of
Coherence. (Note – following Marfurt and Chopra, 2007,
the lower case “coherence” is uses in this paper to refer to
the entire class of attributes that represent volumetric
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SEG Las Vegas 2012 Annual Meeting
estimates of the discontinuity or edges present in the
seismic data. Upper case Coherence™ will refer to the
patented Coherence technology from Amoco).
Figure 2 shows a coherence-class attribute (Horizon Edge
Stacking) on a section that corresponds to the seismic data
shown in Figure 1. Figure 2 illustrates the limitations of
this type of attribute. Typically faults are reasonably well
imaged on time or depth slices. However, the imaging on
vertical sections is discontinuous. Attributes that image
discontinuities are also extremely sensitive to noise in the
seismic volume. The quality of fault imaging is sufficient to
be an assistive technology in fault interpretation, but is
insufficient to support autotracking of faults in 3D. As a
result faults still have to be interpreted manually – a very
time-consuming, tedious and imprecise process.
Figure 2: Line 184 from a coherence-class attribute
(Horizon Edge Stacking). Note the discontinuous imaging
of numerous steeply dipping normal faults (arrows).
Several attempts have been made to develop techniques to
take a coherence class attribute as input, and generate an
output volume with fault imaging that supports 3D
autotracking. Most notable among these are AFE™
(Automated Fault Extraction, Crawford and Medwedeff,
1999; Dorn and James, 2005), Ant Tracking (Randen, et al,
2001), and Hough Transforms (Al bin Hassan and Marfurt,
2003). In ideal situations (high signal, low noise, steeply
dipping faults) all three of these techniques showed some
success in improving the imaging of faults, but all three
approaches have problems in real-world data with noise,
shallower fault dips (e.g., dips shallower than 75o), and
complex fault patters.
The resolution of these fault-imaging issues has motivated
the development of a workflow and an advanced version of
the AFE algorithm.
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2012-1538.1
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 Imaging faults in 3D seismic volumes
Advanced AFE Workflow and Process
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The workflow combines improved imaging of faults in the
input discontinuity volume, with a new Advanced AFE
algorithm that is designed to accurately and precisely image
faults regardless of dip, image intersecting faults, and
improve resolution and signal strength in the output fault
probability volume. Together they combine to produce
results that support 3D fault autotracking.
The workflow consists of the following steps:
• Coherent noise (acquisition footprint) removal
• Create a vector dip attribute volume
• Dip compensated random noise removal
• Create a dip compensated discontinuity volume
• Apply Advanced AFE process
A process based on a de-striping algorithm from satellite
image processing (Crawford and Medwedeff, 1999) was
used to remove coherent noise from the migrated seismic
volume. The input parameters include the direction of
striping, and the wavelength of the striping. If the footprint
is comprised of multiple wavelengths, or has components
in both the inline and crossline directions, the process is
applied several times in sequence to remove the entire
footprint pattern.
A volumetric estimate of strike and dip was then created
using a structure tensor analysis based algorithm (e.g.,
Chopra and Marfurt, 2007). A dip compensated edge
preserving random noise filter was then applied to the
volume produced by the coherent noise removal process. In
this instance, a simple small 5x5x1 horizon dip oriented
median filter was used. Figure 3 shows the result of this
processing applied to the data in Figure 1.
Figure 3: Line 184 after footprint removal and horizon dip
compensated random noise removal. Note the elimination
of the vertical striping associated with acquisition footprint
and the reduction in random noise level compared with
Figure 1.
© 2012 SEG
SEG Las Vegas 2012 Annual Meeting
The vertical striping on the section associated with
acquisition footprint has been removed and random noise
has been reduced, resulting in improved imaging of faults
in the seismic amplitude data.
Properly managing coherent and random noise in the input
volume substantially improves the imaging of the faults
with a discontinuity attribute. Figure 4 shows the result of
applying Horizon Edge Stacking to the seismic volume
represented by the seismic data in Figure 3.
Compare Figures 4 and 2. The same vector dip volume was
used in both cases, and the same input parameters were
used for the Horizon Edge Stack process. The difference in
fault imaging is entirely associated with the presence of
random and coherent noise in the input seismic volume for
Figure 2, and the relative absence of coherent and random
noise in the input seismic volume for Figure 4.
Figure 4: Line 184 from a coherence-class attribute
(Horizon Edge Stacking) applied after coherent and random
noise have been removed from the seismic volume. Note
the imaging of the faults is improved, but still is too
discontinuous for autotracking.
The discontinuity volume represented by the section in
Figure 4 was then used as input to the Advanced AFE
process. Advanced AFE processes the input discontinuity
volume in three steps:
• Azimuth scan on time or depth slices
• Dip scan on vertical slices
• Planarity scan
Since discontinuity attributes tend to image faults better on
horizontal slices through the volume than on vertical slices,
AFE processing begins with an azimuth scan at each
sample on each horizontal slice in the volume. At each
voxel, the process searches for the azimuth at which the
strongest signal is achieved for a lineament passing through
that sample. The signal strength is output to a Line
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2012-1538.1
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 Imaging faults in 3D seismic volumes

Enhanced attribute volume, and the Azimuth is output to a

Fault Azimuth volume.
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In the second step, at each voxel in the Line Enhanced

volume, the azimuth is obtained from the Fault Azimuth
volume, and a dip scan is performed in the direction
perpendicular to the local azimuth. Again the process
searches for the dip at which the strongest signal is
achieved for a lineament passing through that sample. The
signal strength is output to a Vertical Enhanced attribute
volume, and the Dip is output to a Fault Dip volume.

In the final step, at each voxel in the Vertical Enhanced

attribute volume, the azimuth and dip calculated in the Figure 6: Line 184 showing corendered seismic data after
previous two steps is used to define the orientation of a noise management and Fault Enhance attribute.
dipping plane through the voxel. A planarity test is
performed where the output Fault Enhanced (fault Figures 7a-c are volume rendered versions of Fault
probability) value is proportional to the signal strength on Enhance, Fault Azimuth and Fault Dip volumes generated
the dipping plane through the voxel. for this 3D survey. Each rendering extends from 1.2s to 3s
vertically.
In all three steps the user specifies an operator length to be
used in the lineament or planarity calculations. Generally
azimuths between 0 and 180o, and dips between 0 and 90o
are scanned. Any discontinuity attribute can be used as
input (e.g., Coherence, Horizon Edge Stack, or Ant Track
volumes). The process allows for azimuth and dip ranges to
be constrained if desired. The output of the process is a
volumetric estimate of the probability of a fault at each
sample (Fault Enhance volume), and volumetric estimates
of Fault Azimuth and Fault Dip. (a)

Figure 5 shows line 184 from the Fault Enhanced attribute

volume. Fault imaging resolution, continuity and signal-to-
noise ratio have been greatly improved over what was
present in the input Horizon Edge Stack volume. Figure 6
shows line 184 from the Fault Enhanced attribute volume
co-rendered with seismic amplitude. This figure
demonstrated that the faults imaged in the Fault Enhance
attribute volume are properly positioned relative to the
input seismic data.

(b) (c)
Figure 7: 3D volume rendering of (a) Fault Enhance
attribute, (b) Fault Azimuth attribute, and (c) Fault Dip
attribute volumes.

Extracting Fault Surfaces

Once faults have been imaged sufficiently well, the faults

Figure 5: Line 184 from the Fault Enhanced volume.
surfaces may be extracted from the volume using either ot
two approaches. The interpreter may autotrack individual
faults in the Fault Enhance volume in much the same way
that horizons are autotracked in 3D. Alternatively, fault
cuts may be automatically extracted on all time or depth

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SEG Las Vegas 2012 Annual Meeting Page 3
 Imaging faults in 3D seismic volumes
slices in the Fault Enhance volume, and then processed to
associate the independent fault cuts into fault surfaces.
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In Figure 8 a seed point has been placed by the interpreter
on the fault of interest in the Fault Enhance volume, and an
autotracking algorithm has picked a portion of one of the
imaged faults. The interpreter selects the faults of interest,
controls the extent of autotracking, and the linkage between
faults through autotracking parameters. This interactive
approach has the advantage of providing the interpreter
with more direct input to the fault extraction process,
however, in a highly faulted volume, it can still be fairly
time consuming.
Figure 8: 3D view of Fault Enhanced volume with an
autotracked fault surface.
A second approach is illustrated in Figures 9 and 10. Figure
9 shows a set of fault cuts extracted from time-slices in the
Fault Enhance volume. For clarity, only extracted cuts for a
limited range of time slices is displayed. When the fault
cuts are extracted, they are independent polylines that are
not yet associated into fault surfaces. These fault cuts are
then processed through a clustering algorithm. The result of
this clustering process on the fault cuts for the entire
volume of data is shown in Figure 10 for the 71 largest
faults in the volume.
Figure 9: 3D view of extracted fault cuts over a portion of
the Fault Enhanced volume.
© 2012 SEG
SEG Las Vegas 2012 Annual Meeting
Figure 10: 3D view of the 71 largest fault surfaces in the
seismic volume. These surfaces were created by extracting
fault cuts from the Fault Enhance volume and clustering the
cuts into surfaces.
Summary and Conclusions
Fault imaging based on discontinuities in the seismic
volume has proven to be a valuable assistive technology to
support manual interpretation of faults. We have
demonstrated a workflow to control noise present in the
seismic volume to improve the imaging of faults in a
coherence-class attribute. The Advanced AFE process uses
the resulting discontinuity attibute volume as input and
improves the 3D imaging of faults sufficiently to enable 3D
autotracking and automated extraction of 3D fault surfaces.
The resulting surfaces honor the imaging of faults with all
of the detail represented in the 3D seismic volume.
This approach to fault imaging and interpretation enables
interpretation of faults that honor all of the detail in the 3D
seismic volume. It can substantially reduce the time and
human effort involved in interpreting complex fault
patterns in exploration and development. The fault azimuth
and dip attribute volumes provide attributes that can be
used both to assist in reliable extraction of fault surfaces
from the volume, and to enable sorting of resulting surfaces
by azimuth, and dip in addition to size.
Acknowledgements
This work has been conducted as part of the GIVC
Consortium operated by TerraSpark Geosciences LLC. BP,
BHP Billiton, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Repsol and Stone
Energy support this industry-funded consortium. Their
support, insight and encouragement are greatly appreciated.
The work on Advanced AFE has particularly benefited
from discussions and interaction with Jenny Thompson and
Anastasia Miranova (ConocoPhillips), Barton Payne
(Chevron), William Butler (Shell). AFE™ is a patented
process and is a trademark of TerraSpark Geosciences
LLC.
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EDITED REFERENCES
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each paper will achieve a high degree of linking to cited sources that appear on the Web.

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