3D Seismic Interpretation

Part 1: Part 0, Prerequisites

1. Waves: amplitude, frequency, wavelength
2. Reflection, refraction, and Snell’s law
3. Rocks 101: the three families we meet
4. Geologic time and sedimentary basins
5. Wells and logs: the other source of truth

Part 2: Part 1, Foundations of Seismic

1. Welcome: seeing a seismic cube
2. Acoustic impedance and reflection coefficients
3. The convolutional model
4. From shot to stack: processing at a glance
5. Migration: why unmigrated data lies
6. Time vs depth: the two domains of seismic
7. From 2D lines to 3D volumes
8. Resolution and the wavelength problem

Part 3: Part 2, The Interpreter's Toolkit

1. How to look at a 3D volume
2. Polarity, phase, and wavelet conventions
3. Picking horizons: methodology and practice
4. Auto-tracking: when it wins, when it fails
5. Faults in 3D: how to see them, how to pick them
6. QC: when your interpretation is wrong, and how you know

Part 4: Part 3, Structural Interpretation

1. Structural styles: extension, compression, strike-slip, salt, gravity
2. Fault analysis: throw, heave, dip, and seal
3. Folding mechanisms: drape, fault-bend, fault-propagation, detachment
4. Building a structural framework: from picks to 3D model
5. Salt tectonics: diapirs, walls, canopies, and welds
6. Trap geometry and prospect identification

Part 5: Part 4, Stratigraphic Interpretation

1. Reflection terminations: onlap, downlap, toplap, truncation
2. Sequence stratigraphy: sequences, surfaces, and systems tracts
3. Depositional systems: fluvial, deltaic, shoreface, carbonate, deep-water
4. Channel systems: meandering, braided, distributary, submarine
5. Deep-water turbidite fans: anatomy and reservoir architecture
6. Seismic geomorphology: reading paleo-landscapes from 3D volumes

Part 6: Part 5, Rock Physics & AVO

Part 7: Part 6, Seismic Attributes

1. Amplitude attributes: RMS, envelope, and their friends
2. Frequency attributes: spectral decomposition
3. Geometric attributes: dip, azimuth, and curvature
4. Coherence and discontinuity attributes: seeing the unseen faults
5. Attribute combination: RGB blending and classification
6. Attributes for reservoir characterization: putting it together

Part 8: Part 7, Reservoir Characterization & QI

Part 9: Part 8, Advanced QI Topics

1. Geomechanics: elastic to stress and fracture
2. Time-lapse (4D) seismic: monitoring reservoir changes
3. Anisotropy and azimuthal attributes: fractures and stress
4. Full-waveform inversion: matching observed to modeled waveforms
5. Machine-learning QI: neural networks for facies classification
6. CO₂ storage and subsurface monitoring: closing Part 8

Part 10: Part 9, Capstone Case Studies

1. Deepwater turbidite QI: Girassol-style fluid prediction
2. Chalk field 4D compaction: Valhall over 40 years
3. Subsalt imaging: Thunder Horse from Kirchhoff to FWI to QI
4. Unconventional completion design: Wolfcamp shale in the Permian
5. Pre-salt carbonate: Lula/Tupi microbialites under 2 km of salt
6. CO₂ storage retrospective: Sleipner from 1996 to today

Part 11: Part 10: Self-Assessment Quizzes

1. Quiz, Part 0: Prerequisites
2. Quiz, Part 1: Foundations of Seismic
3. Quiz, Part 2: The Interpreter’s Toolkit
4. Quiz, Part 3: Structural Interpretation
5. Quiz, Part 4: Stratigraphic Interpretation
6. Quiz, Part 5: Rock Physics & AVO
7. Quiz, Part 6: Seismic Attributes
8. Quiz, Part 7: Reservoir Characterization & QI
9. Quiz, Part 8: Advanced QI Topics
10. Quiz, Part 9: Capstone Case Studies
11. Final Exam, 50-question integrated assessment

Part 12: Part 11: The Interpretation Lab

1. Loading the survey: where are the inline and crossline numbers?
2. Faults: picking the sticks, and what the scaling laws say about the map
3. Horizons and gridding: turning picks into a map
4. Depth conversion: the map you hand over is not the map you made
5. Tying the well: proving the wiggle is the rock
6. Extracting an attribute: from geometry to rock
7. Volumes, and what you actually hand over