Science.gov (United States)

The petroleum industry is increasing its focus on the exploration of reservoirs in turbidite systems. However, these sedimentary environments are often characterized by very complex sand distributions. Hence, reservoir description based on conventional seismic and well-log interpretation may be very uncertain. There is a need to employ more quantitative seismic techniques to reveal reservoirs units in these complex systems from seismic amplitude data. In this study we focus on North Sea turbidite systems. Our goal is to improve the ability to use 3D seismic data to map reservoirs in these systems. A cross-disciplinary methodology for seismic reservoir characterization is presented that combines rock physics, sedimentology, and statistical techniques. We apply this methodology to two turbidite systems of Paleocene age located in the South Viking Graben of the North Sea. First, we investigate the relationship between sedimentary petrography and rock physics properties. Next, we define ...