Volume Interpretation of complex faulting in the Gulf of Mexico

The Project:

This dataset is highly faulted and structurally complex. As such, it is difficult to gain a complete understanding of the nature of the fault blocks. ffA software was used to create a series of volumes that enabled rapid understanding of the faulting and positioning of the fault blocks.

The Volumes:

First we created Dip (a), Azimuth (b) and combined DipAzi(c) volumes.
Using a 3D algorithm, the structural angle and orientation at every voxel is calculated to create a Dip and an Azimuth volume. These two volumes are combined to create a DipAzi volume that contains both sets of information. The volumes were created at ffA's dedicated services centre in Aberdeen and illustrate the quality of results achievable by asset geoscientists using ffA's image processing and analysis software.

The Results:

• Fault lineations are clearly identified in the Dip volume, as is the higher angle of dip along the eastern edge of the dataset.

• The Azimuth volume highlights a general change in direction from the east to the west side of the volume. It also clearly highlights the cross faulting in the northwestern area.

• When the two volumes are combined there is an enormous amount of information in the resulting volume. The change in the azimuth of adjacent fault blocks is particularly apparent on the eastern edge; whilst in the west, the fault pattern becomes clear.

• All volumes correlate directly with the reflectivity data from which they were calculated.

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(a) Instantaneous Dip volume, with dark areas representing high dip and pale areas representing low dip.

(b) Azimuth Volume, with black-white representing north-south and blue-red representing west-east

(c) Combined DipAzi volume, where the colour change represents the change in azimuth and the colour saturation represents the angle of dip.