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10.1190/1.1581037
Manuscript received by the Editor October 26, 2001; revised manuscript received November 5, 2002.
∗
Formerly University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma; presently BP Exploration Inc., 900 East Benson Boulevard, Anchorage, Alaska 99519.
E-mail: Patrice.Mahob@bp.com.
‡University of Oklahoma, School of Geology and Geophysics, 100 East Boyd Street, Room 810, Norman, Oklahoma 73019. E-mail: castagna@ou.edu.
°c 2003 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.
849
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850 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of a reflection at a boundary. The reflectivity series is convolved with a wavelet, and
the resulting AVO intercept (A) and gradient (B) traces are crossplotted. Note that the points are spread across
all the quarants.
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AVO Strength and Polarization Product 851
(1984) for polarization analysis of three-component VSP. The of polarization at a time sample is
formulation and derivation of the polarization vector compo- µ ¶
nents are described in Appendix A. −1 Py
φ = tan , (1)
The polarization angle, φ, is determined for a sliding time Px
window. The size of the time window should be from one-half
to a wave period (Keho, 2000). For any given window, the angle where Px and Py are the components of the eigenvector (see
Appendix A).
The values of the polarization angle range from −90◦ to
+90◦ .
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852 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
where φ is the polarization angle and φtrend is the background where Amin is the minimum signed value within the time win-
polarization angle. dow of the analysis of A and Bmin is the corresponding B at
The background polarization angle or trend angle is com- Amin , and Amax is the maximum signed value within the time
puted from a larger time window that can be several hundred window of the analysis of A and Bmax is the corresponding B
milliseconds long. We should note that as the V P /VS ratio de- at Amax .
creases with depth (or two-way time) and as wave propagation
effects accumulate or the signal-to-noise ratio varies, the back-
ground angle could change (Castagna et al., 1998).
The polarization angle difference attribute should visually
magnify any polarization angle anomaly, thus enhancing visual
detection of the seismic amplitude anomaly.
and FIG. 7. AVO hodogram of the event for the top of the B Sand,
q D Sand, G1 Sand, and I Sand. The B Sand and I Sand are gas
L max = A2max + Bmax
2 , (5) sands; the D Sand and G1 Sand are brine sands. The aperture
of the data is less or equal to 32◦ .
FIG. 6. Extracted AVO intercept (A) and gradient (B) traces along with the synthetic gather. The first event
around 1450 ms is the top of B Sand reflection.
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AVO Strength and Polarization Product 853
Polarization product.—The product of AVO strength and Linear-correlation coefficient.—The linear-correlation coef-
polarization angle difference, also called the polarization prod- ficient, r , of the polarization analysis is the measure of how well-
uct, is a measure of the magnitude of the AVO effect along defined the polarization spread is (Figure 5). This attribute can
the trace. Large seismic amplitude anomalies will exhibit large exhibit various effects resulting from seismic processing such
values, whereas small values will be related to nonanoma- as residual normal moveout (NMO), NMO stretching, and/or
lous events. This attribute, L1φ, can be used to identify AVO migration artifacts (Dong, 1996, 1998; and Ross, 2000). The
anomalies of magnitude above noise level. linear-correlation coefficient, r , is defined as (Rawlings et al.,
FIG. 8. Display of intercept trace, gradient trace, polarization angle, AVO strength, and square of linear-
correlation coefficient for the model.
FIG. 9. Display of the synthetic gather, the product of AVO strength and polarization angle difference, and the
linear-correlation coefficient for the model.
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854 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
Model parameters
Consider a flat-layered model made of a succession of gas-
and water-saturated sand units encased in shale or silt units
(Table 1) based on well log data from the Northwest Shelf of
Australia. The B Sand, C Sand, I Sand, and M Sand are gas
sands. The D Sand, G1 Sand, and L Sand are water-saturated
sands. The G Sand is a tight gas sand. The model elastic
parameters are presented in Table 1.
FIG. 10. Stacked seismic line with known gas- and brine-sand FIG. 11. Display of a NMO-corrected CDP gather close to the
intervals. The gas-sand zones are indicated in dark gray; well used in the study. The interval of interest is between 2900
brine-sand intervals are shown in light gray. and 3300 ms.
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AVO Strength and Polarization Product 855
length of 200 ms was used. The range of offsets modeled varies methodology. Known hydrocarbon intervals are compared to
from 0 to 16405 ft (5000 m). the derived attributes.
A gradient analysis was performed to extract the intercept One prestack time-migrated (PSTM) 2D line, extracted from
(A) and the gradient (B) traces using a maximum incidence a 3D survey, is used for this study (Figure 10). The dominant
angle of 32◦ . The resulting intercept and gradient traces are frequency of the seismic data is roughly 30 Hz, and the ap-
depicted in Figure 6. proximate tuning thickness is about 30 m (or 18 ms two-way
Representative hodograms of events corresponding to the time) in the reservoir section of interest. Some of the known
top of B Sand, D Sand, G1 Sand, and I sand are shown in gas and brine intervals are highlighted on the seismic sections
Figure 7. A time window size of 20 ms, corresponding to about (Figure 10). A CDP gather close to the well of interest is de-
80% of the period of the seismic data was used to compute the picted in Figure 11.
polarization attributes displayed in Figure 8. A constant back-
ground angle of −20◦ was used to compute the polarization Conventional AVO attribute generation
angle difference.
To perform the gradient extraction, the smoothed corrected
From the synthetic results (Figure 9), note that the porous gas
sonic curve at a nearby well location was used for the velocity
sands correspond to large product of strength and polarization
function. The following constraints are set during the analy-
angle difference (L1φ), whereas brine sands do not. The tight
sis: range of incidence angles = 8–32◦ , range of offsets = 280–
gas sand is represented by a very small value of the polarization
3160 m. The resulting AVO product (A × B) and scaled
product.
Poisson’s ratio change (0.5A + 0.5 B) (Verm and Hilterman,
REAL CASE EXAMPLE
1995) sections for the line are depicted in Figures 12 and 13,
respectively. The known hydrocarbon and brine zones are high-
Polarization attributes are computed using real seismic data lighted and colorcoded. Overall, note that porous gas intervals
from the Northwest Shelf of Australia to investigate the correspond to larger AVO products and scaled Poisson’s ratios
FIG. 12. Display of the AVO product (A × B) attribute along the seismic line. The red boxes and arrows indicate the gas-sand
intervals and the light blue boxes and arrows show the brine-sand zones.
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856 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
than the brine-sand intervals do. However, brine sands also ex- tributes at the well location are depicted in Figures 16–20,
hibit large values. A crossplot of AVO intercepts and gradients respectively.
and the corresponding seismic section is shown in Figure 14.
There is a clear separation from the defined background trend RESULTS
of the seismic reflections related to the porous gas sand at Figures 12–13 and 15–19 indicate that the porous gas sands
2910 ms, but the other known gas sand at roughly 3200 ms can be better identified on the polarization product section
is not exhibited as anomalous on both the crossplot and the than on the conventional AVO attributes, where gas and brine
seismic section. sands can exhibit the same signature. The lateral extent of the
Polarization attribute computation
Table 2. Average background angle values for the seismic
The extracted intercept (A) and gradient (B) traces for the line. Two time windows are considered: 2500–2700 ms and
2600–2800 ms. The angles obtained from the other seismic lines
seismic lines were used to compute the polarization attributes: are similar to the values presented in the table.
(1) polarization angle (φ), (2) polarization angle difference
(1φ), (3) AVO strength (L), (4) polarization product (prod- Window 1 Window 2
uct of strength and polarization angle difference (L1φ), and Trace (2500–2700 ms) (2600–2800 ms)
(5) square of linear-correlation coefficient (r 2 ). A 24-ms slid-
431 −12.60 −22.20
ing window was chosen for the computation. Since the domi- 432 −13.40 −12.60
nant frequency of the seismic data is approximately 30 Hz, the 433 −12.60 −13.40
time window for the computation is roughly 0.727T (where 434 −22.20 −15.80
T is the seismic wave period of the data), a value within the 435 −22.20 −15.80
suggested range (Keho, 2000). A constant background polar- 436 −19.00 −12.60
437 −12.60 −16.60
ization angle of −20◦ was used for the entire trace to calcu- 438 −17.40 −15.80
late the polarization angle difference. The background value 439 −15.80 −22.20
is determined after examining the polarization angles along 440 −16.60 −12.60
a series of traces (12) of the seismic line, particularly out- 441 −18.20 −17.40
side the zone of interest (Figure 15, Table 2). The five at- Average −16.60 −16.09
FIG. 13. Display of the scaled Poisson’s ratio change (0.5A × 0.5 B) attribute along the seismic line. The red boxes and arrows
indicate the gas-sand intervals and the light blue boxes and arrows show the brine-sand zones.
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AVO Strength and Polarization Product 857
sand bodies seem well defined on the polarization attributes, ing that there is a high scattering of time sample points about
whereas the delineation is not clear on the AVO product sec- the polarization trend within these analysis windows. A large
tion or on the scaled Poisson’s ratio attribute. polarization product with large r 2 identifies every productive
Known hydrocarbon and brine intervals for the case-study gas zone. The single large polarization product associated with
seismic line exhibit different signatures on the polarization at- brine had a low r 2 .
tributes. Overall, gas-sand zones are indicated by a large po-
larization product (positive), whereas brine-sand zones exhibit CONCLUSIONS
smaller (or negative) values. This is validated by the high val-
ues of the square of linear-correlation coefficient (≥0.60) in It has been shown from the synthetic results that porous gas
gas intervals, but intervals of large polarization product corre- sands correspond to large polarization product (L1φ), whereas
sponding to brine sands have small values of r 2 (≤0.2), mean- brine sands do not. This is in agreement with the real data result.
FIG. 14. (a) Crossplot of AVO intercepts and gradients. The purple indicates the top of gas-sand reflections,
yellow illustrates the base of gas-sand reflection, and blue represents the background. (b) Overlay of intercept
traces and color zones generated from the crossplot in (a).
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858 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
FIG. 15. Background polarization angle determination for seismic line 2. Two time windows are considered for the analysis:
2500–2700 ms and 2600–2800 ms. The background angle calculated at a trace from each window is the arithmetical average of
the polarization angles within the window. The trace average values for each are presented in Table 2. After examination of the
values, a rounded value of −20◦ is chosen for the attribute computation.
The square of the linear-correlation coefficient (r 2 ) provides event, would not be detectable. This method might fail when
an indication of the reliability of the result. For a good en- analyzing very low frequency data.
hancement of AVO interpretation, the polarization attributes AVO strength and polarization product attributes enhance
should be used in conjunction with the correlation coefficient. and highlight amplitude anomalies related to gas sands and
The polarization product and the linear-correlation coefficient brines better than conventional AVO attributes.
seem to be the most useful attributes for the synthetic and real
data investigated. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The study results from the polarization methodology suggest
that: The authors express sincere thanks to Chevron Overseas
Petroleum Inc. for making the data available to us. We thank
1) Polarization attributes should be considered as an alter- BP for financial support. We also thank Dr. Bill Lamb for use-
native approach to identifying AVO anomalies. ful discussions and advice in programming the polarization at-
2) Polarization attributes can enhance AVO interpretation. tributes. Thanks to Hampson-Russell Software Services for use
3) Polarization attributes can potentially be used as a re- of its AVO software. The authors show their sincere appreci-
connaissance tool to identify possible hydrocarbon (gas) ation to Herbert Swan and the other reviewers for their con-
intervals. structive comments.
AVO polarization attributes are potentially useful hydro-
carbon indicators. For a synthetic model and real seismic REFERENCES
data example, large polarization products combined with high
Adamick, J., Hall, D., Skoyles, D., DeWildt, J., and Erickson, J., 1994,
linear-correlation coefficients were found to correlate with the AVO as an exploration tool; Gulf of Mexico case studies and ex-
presence of hydrocarbons. However, this technique will not amples: 64th Ann. Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded
work properly if the signal-to-noise ratio of the data is very Abstracts, 1107–1111.
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gas sand, hidden within the sidelobe of a large background 1272.
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AVO Strength and Polarization Product 859
FIG. 16. Display of the polarization angle (φ) attribute along the seismic line. The black arrows indicate known gas-sand zones; the
white arrows show brine-sand intervals.
Cardamone, M., Marini, I., and Bertelli, L., 1998, New 3D visualization Nada, H., and Shrallow, J., 1994, Evaluating geophysical lithology
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860 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
FIG. 17. Display of the polarization angle difference (1φ) attribute along the seismic line. The black arrows indicate known gas-sand
zones; the white arrows show brine-sand intervals.
FIG. 18. Display of the AVO strength (L) attribute along the seismic line. The black arrows indicate known gas-sand zones; the
white arrows show brine-sand intervals.
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AVO Strength and Polarization Product 861
FIG. 19. Display of the polarization product (L × 1φ) attribute along the seismic line. The black arrows indicate known gas-sand
zones; the white arrows show brine-sand intervals.
FIG. 20. Display of the square of linear-correlation coefficient (r 2 ) attribute along the seismic line. The black arrows indicate known
gas-sand zones; the white arrows show brine-sand intervals.
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862 Nsoga Mahob and Castagna
APPENDIX A
POLARIZATION-VECTOR COMPONENTS DERIVATION
The formulation of the polarization vector is derived from The eigenvectors corresponding to the characteristic roots (λ)
the correlation matrix Rm that is used to compute the eigen- calculated from equation (A-3). The two vectors are orthogo-
vectors (Esmersoy, 1984): nal. Nsoga Mahob (2001) showed that the components of the
vector corresponding to the larger eigenvalue are
1 XN
Rm = r (i)r T (i), (A-1) Ã !
2N + 1 i=−N Px
=
where N is half of the length of the time window (in sample
Py
points) and r (i) represents the observed data in the time win- X
dow of interest. The subscript m is the center sample point of √ At+i Bt+i
2
the time window [-N , N ], which is rectangular. vÃ
i
The matrix Rm from equation (1) can be expanded in the 1 u !2 Ã !2
[1 + D] 2 u X X X
A-B plane as follows: t4
At+i Bt+i + A2t+i − 2
Bt+i ,
X
N X
N i i i
√
A2t+i At+i Bt+i 2 1
1 i=−N [1 + D] 2
Rm = i=−N ,
2N + 1 2
XN XN
2
At+i Bt+i Bt+i (A-5)
i=−N i=−N
where
(A-2) Ã !
X X
where At+i is the AVO intercept value at time sample t, and A2t+i − 2
Bt+i
Bt+i is the AVO gradient value at time sample t. Rm is a 2 × 2 i i
D=v à !2 à !2
symmetric matrix, and its eigenanalysis can be done efficiently. u
u X X X
The eigenvalues are obtained by solving the equation t4 A + A2t+i − 2
t+i Bt+i Bt+i
|Rm − λI| = 0, (A-3) i i i
(A-6)
where λ represents the eigenvalues or characteristic roots and
I is the unity matrix: with i = −N , . . . , N . Px and Py are normalized so that a unit
à ! polarization vector is considered. That is,
1 0
I= . (A-4)
0 1 kPk = 1. (A-7)
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