Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
It’s pretty common knowledge that sunlight is composed of many different frequencies (colors) , and we perceive the color of an object by the color(s) that is/are reflected from the object—that is, an object is red because all of the other colors are absorbed (or filtered out) by the object.
We also know that seismic data contains many different frequencies, usually within a range from about 6-120 Hz (Hertz, or cycles per second). Have you ever considered that seismic data can be similarly filtered to reveal its “colors”? I know that this is probably pretty basic stuff for most of you, but bear with me for a minute so that I can better illustrate how you can eliminate most of the seismic frequencies, to reveal hidden features. Some might call it the “poor man’s” spectral decomposition.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
Do you ever need to use your SMT fault polygons for other applications? For example, I quite often convert them to an SMT culture layer, as a fault QC (quality control) tool, or use them in Surfer, when I need extended gridding capabilities.
The benefit of having an individual horizon’s fault polygons converted to an SMT culture layer is that you can easily keep the fault strikes consistent when working on an adjacent horizon, by overposting the culture layer onto your active horizon. I normally create fault planes on all of the faults that I see on multiple lines. However, some faults don’t extend far enough to be seen on more than one line, so it’s difficult to fault plane them with the lack of control points—a common occurrence in 2D projects, with widely-spaced lines (eg. regional projects).
Golden Software’s Surfer program has a wide array of gridding, and grid-manipulation capabilities, but it only uses the proprietary “bln” file format for faults. So, you will need to convert your SMT fault polygons to this format before you can use them in Surfer.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
No, the title isn’t about those difficult teenage years, it is related to the subtle details of seismic phase determination. Sorry if you thought that I was going to solve one of life’s little mysteries. 
How many times have you correlated two different sets of intersecting seis- mic data, and had difficulty trying to decide which phase rotations produce the best character match? For example, when you were trying to tie a syn- thetic seismogram with a seismic line, or correlate two seismic lines of various vintages. I have (many times), and until I figured this out, I sometimes had nagging doubts about my selections.
Here’s how I do it now. The four columns of traces below were taken from a larger synthetic in a singe wellbore, and they represent four different phase rotations. From left-to-right: zero degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees. Note that the synthetic time interval that I chose for this example has no particular significance, other than it was relatively compact, and had many of the phase details that I wanted to illustrate.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
For those who read my previous posting, “Making the Case for Synthetic Seismograms“, but didn’t currently have a program to generate your own synthetics, I thought that I would include a few links to the programs that I knew about. All of the programs listed below, except SMT’s SynPak, are stand-alone programs, or part of a group of software related to synthetics (log editing, AVO modeling, etc.)—at least that I could determine from their websites.
Please note that I have only used the first two programs in the list, and cannot recommend any of the remaining software, relative to how accurate they are, how well they perform, etc. The list is provided for your informa- tion, and convenience only.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
Why bother using synthetic seismograms (aka. synthetics) to calibrate well info to our seismic data? Simple answer, TO REDUCE DRILLING RISK !
For example, I’ve seen prospects “evaporate” because the originator was mapping the wrong event—or just as bad, started mapping on the correct event, but ended up on the wrong event due to a character, or response change in the seismic data. This only became evident after a couple of synthetic correlations!
I also continue to see prospects that are being sold on the strength of an amplitude, or avo response, that is somehow related to a key wellbore. However, often a synthetic hasn’t been used to tie (correlate) the well to the seismic data. How could they even know for sure what was causing the anomaly, without a synthetic tie?
So, with these recent real-life examples in mind, I thought that it would be a good idea to cite some reasons why we should use synthetics, with a blog posting.
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Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
I was just notified that the instructions in the info page of the Culture Symbol Spreadsheet (posted on 02/08/08) were in error.
I had copied-and-pasted the intial text, for the info page, from another spreadsheet, and thought that I had made the appropriate changes. However, I may have uploaded the wrong version when I finished.
Sorry for any confusion, previously. I have corrected the version in the original posting, but here is the corrected Culture Symbol Spreadsheet, along with the ascii file that goes with it.
Copyright © T/X RESOURCES, 1995-2008. All Rights Reserved.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
One of the limitations of seismic visualization that I often encounter, prior to interpreting the data, is being able to effectively isolate a geobody without including too much of the surrounding data.
For those new to visualization, the two common methods for displaying geo- bodies are: (1) Amplitude Restriction within a window (requires no previous interpretation), and (2) Data Extraction adjacent to an interpreted feature (ie. a fault, or horizon). Method 1 is usually faster, but can leave in a lot of extraneous data, as I’ve already mentioned. Method 2 is usually better at eliminating extraneous data, but most of the time it can’t be done until after a detailed interpretation—not much help if you’re in a hurry to see something.
So, I’m mainly looking for a method that can be used prior to a detailed inter- pretation, but is much better than Method 1 (and hopefully quicker than Method 2). The idea that I had is similar to the erase function in many raster image editing programs. Why can’t we erase the seismic data that we don’t want, just like we erase pixels in an image, using a combination of polygons for larger areas, and an adjustable “eraser” tool, for detailed, manual deletions.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file (four pages).
Note: The avi file is fairly large, so it will take some time before the animation starts.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
Here’s the latest in the series of T/X Resources spreadsheets designed to help when you need to create symbols to import as an SMT culture layer.
In the image below, a variety of symbols have been created to highlight certain wellbore attributes. For example, they could represent producing formations, hydrocarbon shows, well log types, or test results. You can also vary the symbol sizes, and colors, to represent a ranking order, such as production volumes, etc. It doesn’t really matter what you want to show on your map—this is an easy way to do it.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
How cool is this? I just found a new online spreadsheet application that allows you to share, collaborate, and publish spreadsheets that actually work when they are posted on a website, or blog. EditGrid received a very good rating from PC Magazine. The concept is somewhat similar to what is already being done with the online spreadsheet applications of Google Docs, and Zoho. However, the company focuses all of its efforts on the spreadsheet application solely, and apparently does a much better job at it, than either of its competitors.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
This posting is an update of the ”Active Domestic Drilling Rigs and Seismic Crew Count” statistics which I created, and originally posted on the HGS GeoJob Bank ”GeoJob & Energy Statistics” page. However, the HGS page has not been updated since I “retired” as Chair of the Personnel Placement Committee, so I have decided that I would continue updating, and posting the graph here.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
For those of you that haven’t had a chance to try out the Coblending feature in version 8.2 of SMT’s VuPak module yet, I would suggest that you give it a look. If you’ve never used anything like it before, be aware that it could max out your wowie-meter! Excuse the enthusiasm, but I like cool (and useful) technology.
(Back in the real world now) What is Coblending? It is just as its name implies—it is the ability to blend two different volumes of seismic data together, and display them both at the same time. Besides being very cool, it could also really be helpful with seismic interpretations—especially in complexly faulted areas.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file.
See the VuPak animation
Note: The avi file is fairly large, so it will take some time before the animation starts.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
For anyone who experienced the fluctuations in the oil business during the last 30 years or so, the descriptive “roller coaster ride” in the title only partly explains our adventures.
At the time of the hiring peak of the oil industry—December 1981—there were nearly 1.18 million people employed in the mining industry (a Bureau of Labor Statistics category which includes the oil industry), as seen on the blue employee graph in the image below (generated with Golden Software’s Grapher program).
Oil prices had just peaked at $34.59 per barrel (average monthly price) nine months earlier, but it was still selling at nearly $31 per barrel that December. During the same time period however, March to December 1981, industry unemployment had crept up to 7.5 percent, from just 4.4 percent (black graph in the image below)—an increasing trend that went unappreciated by most of us at the time.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
I got the idea for today’s posting from a client’s search for a critical well log—he’s been searching for it for a while now, but hadn’t been able to find it, so far. So, I suggested a few more companies to search, and hence this posting. Since logs are so important for what we do as geoscientists, I thought that the list of sources (in no particular order) that I sent to him, might be helpful to others, as well.
IHS has millions of feet of world-wide coverage of digitized logs, and raster images at: http://www.ihslognet.com/
TGS also has world-wide coverage of digital LAS log files, and raster logs at: http://www.tgsnopec.com/data_solutions/geological_products_services.asp
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
Anyone who has visited the Houston Geological Society’s (HGS) GeoJob Bank, or more specifically the GeoJob & Energy Statistics page, is bound to recognize this graph. During my nearly six-year tenure (2000-2005) as Chair of the Personnel Placement Committee, I created and updated the industry-related graphs on the Statistics page (amoung my many other duties). However, since I “retired” from the Committee in late 2005, the graphs haven’t been updated, so I thought that this would be a good venue to revive some of the graphs, and keep them current with updated information.
This first graph, in a series to come, is the oil and natural gas price curves for 35-years—from January 1973, through the last available data in December 2007. It was created from downloadable data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Information Agency, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, saved to a spreadsheet, and then graphed with Golden Software’s Grapher program.
See the larger Adobe Reader pdf file.
Author: Mike Cline, T/X Resources
If you’re like me you probably spend long hours at the computer. Because of this, it’s easy to develop Repetative Stress Injuries (RSI) if you’ve improperly positioned yourself, your computer equipment, or your office furniture.
I just ran across a few websites that may be helpful and informative as to the proper, ergonomic placement of these items.
The U.S. Governments Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) website provides a lot of useful information concerning Computer Workstations, and provides a Workstation Checklist, and Workstation Purchasing Checklist, Good Working Positions, and Selecting Workstation Components .
Even with the correct design and placement of the workstation, RSI can become a problem unless the risk factors are reduced by Work Process and Recognition, and the Workstation Environment.