HMTG INOVATION CHALLENGE

GAS HYDRATES EXPLORATION USING CONTINUOUS WAVELET

TRANSFORM BASED ON SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION
Hafidz Dezulfakar, Muhazzib, Yulia Nur Fajrina
Geophysical Engineering ITS

ABSTRAK
Gas hydrates is potential energy resources in the future, because has more potential than existing conventional energy resources to fulfill energy demand in the future. In the gas hydrates exploration which using seismic method, evaluation of BSR (Bottom Simulating Reflector) appearance
in seismic profile is important to indicate base of gas hydrates. BSR also could be a boundary between gas hydrates and free gas beneath it. The effect of BSR (Bottom Simulating Reflector) in sea bed will give acoustic impedance contrast between high velocity of gas hydrates bearing
sediment with low velocity sedimentary. In some areas, lateral distribution of BSR is difficult to directly detect gas hydrates by simply looking at seismic sections. So the purpose of the study to apply spectral decomposition attribute that can help deliniating underlying free gas and finding
the position of BSR. Spectral decomposition is used in time-frequency domain based on continuous wavelet transform (CWT) which used mathematical morlet wavelet that shown high frequency resolution at low frequency and high time resolution at higher frequencies. CWT uses
dilatation and translation of a wavelet to produce a time-scale map. The result of this study, the time frequency map shows the illuminated zone which have high energy low frequency anomaly, indicating the presence free gas reservoir.

INTRODUCTION

Gas hydrate is a methane bearing, or water molecules which containing methane as cagelike lattices. Gas hydrate occurs worldwide both in marine and terrestrial environment,
also occur in various geologic settings and conditions, such as in oceanic sediments, in
deepwater sediments
But in several BSR distribution area, we difficult to detect its by simply looking at seismic
section. To overcome this problem, we apply spectral decomposition method attribute that
can help deliniating underlying free gas and finding the position of BSR.

METHODOLOGY

BASIC THEORY
GAS HYDRATE IN BLAKE RIDGE

The Blake Ridge was drift deposit located approximately 450 km east of Savannah, Georgia which known
contained gas hydrate and free gas potential. Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 164, which drilled three holes on
the Blake Ridge to a maximum depth of 750 m below the sea floor, revealed sediment packages of mud and silt
with hydrate intermittently filling the pore space(Paull and Matsumoto, 2000).
The surface morphology of Blake Ridge is controlled by the western boundary undercurrent, which erodes
sediment from the eastern flank of the ridge and redeposits it on the western half, thus providing a unique
opportunity to study the dynamics of the BSR (Jenkins and Rhines, 1980).
The study about gas flow distribution in the sediment waves of Blake Ridge really important to proof the
hypotheses before.
GAS HYDRATE IMPLICATION IN SEISMIC DATA
The depth where the temperature exceeds the stability zone for hydrate to break down into water and gas is called
Gas Hydrate Stability Zone. GHSZ appears as an energy blind zone limited above by the reflection in the ocean
bottom
A direct seismic evidence could be identified by the presence of Bottom Simulating Reflector (BSR). The BSR can
be explained as the marks of hydrates and free gas boundary which have negative impedance and high contrast
amplitude, because higher velocities in the hydrate stability zone overlying lower velocities resulting from gasfilled pore spaces. BSR could be the little direct indicator for informing the concentration or thickness of the
deposits.
SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION
Spectral decomposition is a technique that generate a continuous volume of instantaneous spectral attributes from
seismic data to get useful information for reservoir characterization and direct hydrocarbon detection
Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) defined as the sum over all time of the signal g(t) multiplied by a scaled
and shifted version of the analyzing mother wavelet function.
Formulation of instantaneous amplitude based on CWT is :
=

2 + 2 ()

Three lines of seismic data were selected for this study, they are inline number 22, 45, 65 and
crossline number 829 (Figure 1).
From each selected line, there are three description analysis based on spectral decomposition
application, such as low-frequency, and high-frequency spectral decomposition analysis.
Time frequency decomposition was applied in the three selected lines by 5-70 Hz with range 5 Hz.
Start

Input seismic section data

Determine line which used

Apply Spectral Decomposition

using CWT Method and Morlet
wavelet

Extract some frequencies to be analyzed

Picking Horizon of BSR based on

analysis before

Anomalies identification on high &

low frequency panels

Then, so the magnitude of the instantaneous amplitude is

, = | , |1/2 =

Lateral Distribution Map

(, ) (, )

Time-frequency derivative of Instantaneous amplitude is formulated as:

1
, =

Figure 1 - Bathymetric location map of the Black Ridge Study Area. The black dashed arrow
indicated the flow direction of the Western Boundary Undercurrent and white annotated circle
noted as well site. The thin red box described the location of seismic 3D survey (Holbrook,
2003)

Apply Spectral Decomposition

Horizon Map

The seismic decomposition attribute is generally used to figure out the value of seismic attenuation. Because
actually seismic attenuation is influenced by rock porosity which saturated by fluid.
In the free gas reservoir cases, the high value of this attribute shows high saturation of fluid in the rock porosity. So
in these cases, the study could observe the distribution of gas anomaly that is delineated using time-frequency
derivatives of instantaneous amplitude.

Discussion

End

Figure 2 Methodology flowchart of the study

HMTG INOVATION CHALLENGE

GAS HYDRATES EXPLORATION USING CONTINUOUS WAVELET

TRANSFORM BASED ON SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION
Hafidz Dezulfakar, Muhazzib, Yulia Nur Fajrina
Geophysical Engineering ITS

RISULT AND DISCUSSION

SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION ANALYSIS

In this study CW methodology of spectral decomposition attribute was choosen because extracted time frequency from the
example trace shows that distribution of frequency range with CWT method is more focused and not too wide as FFT method
(figure 3).

So when the spectral decomposition of CWT method was applied in the horizon surface map, the distribution anomalies image
more clear and the anomalies could be focused identified. (figure 4)

For low-frequency panels, the GHSZ showed the lack of energy and made low frequency blackout zone (LFBZ). The
interpretation of LFBZ could be observed 20 Hz low frequency panel on the figure 5 b. The GHSZ appear as transparent layers
in the low frequency because It doesnt reflect the low frequency componenent of the seismic waves.

The high amplitude response in the low frequency panels of spectral decomposition could be called as low frequency anomalies
(LFA) as the indication of potential reservoir.

Then, for high-frequency panels analysis (figure 5 c), It observed high frequency anomaly appears just below the BSR. The
anomalies have a very well defined energy peak at a certain frequency caused by tunning effect character

The tuning effect is controlled by the velocity and thickness of these layers. In the high-frequency panels, the high frequency
black out zones (HFBZ) also observed as GHSZ forhigh frequency attenuation response due to low quality factor of layers
where the gas hydrate is more concentrated.

From this low-frequency panels, it obeserved that high amplitude (yellow red anomalies) can be identified as gas
accumulation. The distribution of gas accumulation can described in BSR horizon and time slice 20 70 ms (figure 6).

From the spectral decomposition analysis, the appearance of the hydrate gas stability zone gas accumulation, and also the gas
flow could be identified. Then the free gas accumulation in the eastern part of seismic section or eastern flank of the ridge,
looked like more decrease than the western part and just some parts the gas accumulation was appeared

a)

a)

b)
b)

figure 4 Comparison 20 Hz frequency panels between spectral decomposition of (a) CWT

method and (b) FFT method in the BSR lateral map distribution
c)

GEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

The facies of depositional system of this field is sediment waves. Halbrook et al. (2002) described that the buried waves on the
eastern flank of the ridge display sigmoidal shapes which could be erosionally truncated with onlapping overlying strata. The
erosional scouring appears at western ocean bottom (figure 5 a).

Therefore because of this erosion factor, the BSR of this field could be identified have the dynamic system especially in the part
of eastern flank ridge. It means the trap between free gas resevoir and gas hydrate stability zone could be still dynamic due the
movement of sea floor stability happened in the thousand until hundred million years.

Because of these factors also, temperature and pressure changing made the steady state of gas hydrate was disturbed. Therefore
we couldnt see any huge gas anomaly in the eastern flake of ridge.

d)

figure 6 The 20 Hz frequency panels of Gas Accumulation (GA) lateral distribution map in
(a) BSR horizon and time slices (b)20 ms, (c) 50 ms, (d) 70 ms.

CONCLUSION

a)

b)

figure 3 Comparison time-frequency panel of 653 seismic trace between (a) CWT Method (selected)
and (b) FFT method

figure 5 Slice A-A. (a) Part of seismic section for inline 22. (b) The 20 Hz frequency panel
on seismic inline number 22. (c) The 55 Hz frequency panel on seismic inline number 22.

CONCLUSION

Spectral decomposition is very useful method of seismic attribute to observe the gas
anomaly distribution, gas flow and stability zone of gas hydrate. By extracting the
frequency of seismic into low frequency and high frequency, the anomalies of gas
hydrate zone implication could be identified.

In this case, CWT method really effective for extracting the frequency from seismic,
because the range frequency not too wide and focused, so the image of anomalies could
be identified easier.

Collaboration with sedimentary and geochemical study would be more beneficial in the
gas hydrates exploration, because the gas hydrate production environment occurred
steady state condition of temperature and pressure.