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Identification of shallow geohazard channels based on discontinuity seismic

attributes in the South Caspian Sea

Article  in  Geophysics · September 2018

DOI: 10.1190/geo2017-0605.1

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Case History

Identification of shallow geohazard channels based on discontinuity

seismic attributes in the South Caspian Sea

Haleh Karbalaali1, Paul de Groot2, Abdolrahim Javaherian3, Farrukh Qayyum2, Stephan Dahlke4,
and Siyavash Torabi5

ABSTRACT using an inversion-based flattening algorithm. In the next step,

Identification of geomorphological features in seismic data is
a key element of seismic interpretation. Channels in the shallow
subsurface are potential geohazards. At deeper levels, they can
be the actual targets for (horizontal) drilling. Either way, it is
important to optimally delineate these features prior to well
location positioning and drilling. We have studied a poststack
3D seismic data from the South Caspian Sea featuring shallow
channels that are considered potential geohazards for drilling
operations. In the first step, we attenuate the acquisition foot-
prints along the inline direction using a geostatistics approach
based on factorial kriging. To better visualize channels in the
presence of stratigraphic dips, we create a dense set of horizons
we compare various discontinuity attributes such as semblance,
similarity, curvature, and the relatively new attribute based
on the multiscale and multidirectional shearlet transformation
to determine which one best images our features of interest.
Curvature attributes clearly image channel levies (positive curva-
ture) and channel centers (negative curvature). Lateral changes in
the curvature magnitude infer sedimentation from the north. Sim-
ilarity, semblance, and shearlet transform attributes also success-
fully delineate channel edges, but these attributes do not contain
additional geologic information. In the final step, we qualitatively
analyze channel thickness variations by the red-green-blue blend-
ing of three spectral components based on short window Fourier
transforms.

INTRODUCTION
Increased exploration activities in deepwater environments have
revealed numerous drilling hazards in the shallow sediments, such
as buried channels. There is a three-step process to handle shallow
hazards, which includes first identifying geohazards using available
geologic and geophysical data, then preventing drilling hazards
based on proper well location and drilling path selection, and finally
reducing hazardous problems once they occur. Among these steps,
identification of hazardous regions is the most significant stage.
Deepwater shallow hazards can pose cost, safety, and environmen-
tal risks if not prevented in the identification and prevention steps
(Dutta et al., 2010). Therefore, the interpretation of shallow chan-
nels, which is one example of such drilling hazards, from seismic
data is a crucial task for interpreters.
We investigated a 3D poststack seismic volume from the South
Caspian Sea for the purpose of geohazard channel edge detection.
Shallow channels in this area are high-pressured, either water- or
gas-saturated features, which may impact instability in drilling op-
erations and pipeline routings. As preprocessing, we applied acquis-
ition footprint removal based on factorial kriging trying to alleviate
striping effects along the inline direction, which may interfere with

Manuscript received by the Editor 7 September 2017; revised manuscript received 4 July 2018; published ahead of production 05 September 2018; published
online 23 October 2018.
1
Amirkabir University of Technology, Department of Petroleum Engineering, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: haleh.karbalaali@aut.ac.ir.
2
dGB Earth Sciences, Enschede, The Netherlands. E-mail: paul.degroot@dgbes.com; farrukh.qayyum@dgbes.com.
3
Formerly University of Tehran, Institute of Geophysics, Tehran, Iran; presently Amirkabir University of Technology, Department of Petroleum Engineering,
Tehran, Iran. E-mail: javaherian@aut.ac.ir; javaheri@ut.ac.ir.
4
Phillips University, Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Marburg, Germany. E-mail: dahlke@mathematik.uni-marburg.de.
5
Dana Geophysics Company, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: torabi.siyavash@danaenergy.ir.
© 2018 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.

B317
 B318 Karbalaali et al.
the edge-detection results. To better visualize channels, we gener-
ated a dense set of horizons for chronostratigraphic slicing (de
Groot et al., 2010). This approach has already been successfully
applied in geohazard studies since it aids the visualization and
interpretation of seismic attributes and provides covisualization in
structural and stratigraphic domains (Selvage et al., 2012; Bouanga
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et al., 2014). We implemented industry-standard discontinuity
attributes such as semblance (Tingdahl and de Rooij, 2005; Ghosh
et al., 2014; Dewett and Henza, 2016; Honório et al., 2017), sim-
ilarity (Marfurt et al., 1998), and curvature (Roberts, 2001; Chopra
and Marfurt, 2013, 2014) along with a newly defined edge sensitive
attribute based on the shearlet transformation (Karbalaali et al.,
2017). Finally, we investigated thickness variations within the chan-
Figure 1. Time slice at 148 ms. (a) Original volume. (b) After re-
moving footprints along the inline direction. (c) Removed footprints
(= a − b).
nels using spectral decomposition and red-green-blue (RGB) blend-
ing along an extracted channelized horizon slice.
GEOLOGIC SETTING OF THE STUDY AREA
The South Caspian Sea, which is geographically east of Azerbai-
jan, west of Turkmenistan, and north of Iran, forms the center of the
South Caspian Basin (SCB). The SCB is a Tertiary basin having
several interesting properties including high rates of sediment ac-
cumulation, sediment thicknesses up to 20 km, low sediment com-
paction, low geothermal, and exceptionally high-pressure gradients
(Smith, 2006). Large amounts of deltaic input sediments, sea-sur-
face subsidence, and regionally intense tectonism constructed the
structures in this area. The SCB is the remnant of the back-arc basin
of the Tethys paleo-ocean in the Pliocene (Kaz’min and Verzhbit-
skii, 2011). The Paleo-Amu Darya and Paleo-Volga deltas have
been the major sources of sediment in the SCB during the Miocene
to Recent period, with weaker contributions from the Paleo-Kura
and Paleo-Sefid Rud systems. Although the SCB is now a deep-
water basin, for most of the Pliocene and early Pleistocene, shallow
conditions prevailed. The regional horizon, which is characterized
as a clinoform, is chronostratigraphically estimated in the Apsheron
Stage of the Lower Pleistocene. This stage is represented by a thick
sequence of shale with marl and sand-bearing strata. It is shale-
dominated lacustrine with minor input from rivers. During the Pleis-
tocene, among diverse paleo-rivers, sediment contribution from
Amu Darya is significant
METHODOLOGY
Preprocessing of the seismic data
Figure 1a displays a time slice at 148 ms containing a turbidite
channel system extracted from a 3D poststack seismic volume in
the South Caspian Sea. Acquisition footprints, i.e., stripes, are vis-
ible along the inline direction and need to be eliminated prior to
interpretation. A factorial kriging-based destriping algorithm was
applied to remove the striping effect. The algorithm computes a var-
iogram model composed of two structures: signal and noise (in the
form of stripes). The variogram parameters for these two structures
are determined automatically during an iterative process, time slice-
by-time slice. After determining the parameters, the stripes are fil-
tered out by factorial kriging. Figure 1b shows the result of applying
the iterative destriping algorithm to the original poststack 3D vol-
ume. Although this procedure successfully alleviates the acquisition
footprints, it also removes some channel signals (Figure 1c).
Chronostratigraphic interpretation
Time slices are only suitable for interpreting data from a flat earth.
Where stratigraphy dips, time slices cut through events from different
chronostratigraphic origin. To facilitate the interpretation, it is there-
fore, desirable to interpret al.ng chronostratigraphic slices, i.e., along
mapped horizons that follow seismic reflectors (Vail et al., 1977). We
used a global seismic interpretation technique to semiautomatically
generate a dense set of horizons. First, we interpreted three frame-
work horizons using manual interpretation and conventional auto-
tracking. Next, we ran an inversion-based flattening algorithm to
generate a dense set of horizons in between the framework horizons.
The flattening algorithm minimized the error between dips measured
along the horizons and dips computed from the seismic data
 Identification of geohazard channels
(Qayyum et al., 2012). Figure 2 shows the dense set of autogenerated
horizons overlain on the seismic data. The horizon AA′ in this figure
was selected for further analysis because it showed the most chan-
nelized features.
Seismic discontinuity attributes
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Figure 3 shows seismic amplitudes after footprint removal along
horizon AA′ in Figure 2. Figures 4, 5, and 6 illustrate channel edges
based on semblance, minimum similarity, and most-positive and
Figure 2. (a) The dense set of seismic horizons that was created
with an inversion-based flattening technique shown overlain on
one inline and one crossline. The dense set of horizons enabled
chronostratigraphic slicing through the volume. The AA′ horizon
was selected for further analysis.
Figure 3. The seismic data after applying footprint removal on the
AA′ horizon of Figure 2.
Figure 4. Semblance attribute on the AA′ horizon of Figure 2.
B319
most-negative curvature attributes on the extracted horizon slice,
respectively.
The shearlet transform (Labate et al., 2005) as a novel multiscale
and multidirectional transformation is capable of detecting aniso-
tropic features with different orientations in images. Yi et al. (2009)
propose the shearlet transform edge-detection algorithm based on
Figure 5. Dip-steered similarity on the AA′ horizon of Figure 2.
Figure 6. The result of applying the (a) most-negative and (b) most-
positive “volume” curvature on the extracted horizon of Figure 3.
These curvature attributes reveal different geologic features of the
channels. Although positive curvature images levies, negative cur-
vature images edges corresponding nearer to the thalweg. Although
curvature attributes delineate channel edges well, these attributes
also exhibit cross-like patterns and stripes associated with remnants
of the footprint.
 B320 Karbalaali et al.
band-limited shearlets. Karbalaali et al. (2017) derive a novel
discontinuity attribute based on compactly supported shearlets
(Kutyniok et al., 2016). We applied the shearlet edge-detection
algorithm to the 32nd extracted slice from the flattened seismic vol-
ume (Figure 7), which corresponds to the evaluated horizon slice.
Applying RGB blending of the spectral decomposition (Peyton
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et al., 1998; Partyka et al., 1999) components along the extracted
horizon slice may result in a better delineation of channel morphol-
Figure 7. The result of applying the shearlet edge-detection algo-
rithm on the 32nd extracted slice from the flattened seismic volume,
which corresponds to the evaluated horizon slice.
Figure 8. RGB color blending of isofrequencies 25, 45, 65 Hz in the
red, green, and blue channels, respectively. The isofrequencies were
computed with a short window FFT spectral decomposition algorithm.
Table 1. Summary of input parameters used to compute semblance, similarity, and curvature attributes.
Scaling filter Wavelet filter
Semblance Two pairs forming a cross centered on the evaluation point
Minimum similarity Two pairs forming a cross centered on the evaluation point
Most-negative curvature Radius of two traces
Most-positive curvature Radius of two traces
ogy and thickness variations. Figure 8 displays the RGB color
blending of the three spectral components of 25, 45, and 65 Hz
along horizon AA′. Red-to-pink colors indicate thicker parts of
the channel, whereas green-to-blue colors correspond to the thinner
parts.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The quality of the input seismic data has a considerable impact on
edge detection. Preprocessing of the seismic volume was deemed
necessary to remove the observed acquisition footprint along the
inline direction. The distance between these artifacts in the inline
direction measured on the time slice was approximately 80 m. In a
separate approach, we investigated the application of a dip-steered
median filtering to the original seismic data and compared the result
with the destriped volume. Because the latter removed much less
signal from the data, we proceeded with the workflow with the des-
triped seismic volume.
The similarity attribute is typically computed between trace pairs
oriented in different azimuthal directions around the analysis point.
The minimum similarity of all trace pair calculations is often taken as
the desired output. With the steering option enabled, the algorithm
follows the local dip to find trace segments to compare instead
of comparing horizontally extracted trace segments. Whereas the
similarity attribute works by comparing pairs in given positions, sem-
blance uses all picks within the window to create the score. Although
these two attributes produced almost similar results, the similarity
attribute-detected channel edges slightly better. Al-Dossary and Mar-
furt (2006) show that the most-positive and -negative curvatures are
the most valuable in the conventional mapping of faults, folds, and
flexures. We extracted the positive and negative curvatures. Our re-
sults showed that the most-positive curvature detects channel levies,
whereas the most-negative curvature images paths are nearer to the
thalweg. The magnitude of both curvatures decreases from north to
south. This indicates higher levies and lower channel centers in the
north inferring sedimentation from north to south. Curvature attrib-
utes also exhibit cross-like patterns. Such patterns are often observed
in curvature attributes and are attributed to the input sampling. In this
particular case, the effect is notable because the attribute emphasized
the remnants of the footprint. Table 1 depicts the parameters used in
generating the semblance, similarity, and curvature attributes.
The number of different orientations associated with the finest
scale of decomposition is the main parameter in the shearlet edge-
detection algorithm. Table 2 demonstrates the effective parameters
of the shearlet edge-detection algorithm. We decomposed the data
into two scales and used the subimages at the finest scale of decom-
position for edge detection. The shearlet generator is built from the
tensor product of a 1D wavelet function and a 1D scaling function,
Directional filter Thresholding
Time gate [−28 28] Dip steering cube
Time gate [−28 28] Dip steering cube
Constant velocity (2500 m∕s) Dip steering cube
Constant velocity (2500 m∕s) Dip steering cube
 Identification of geohazard channels
Table 2. Summary of parameters used in the 2D shearlet edge-detection algorithm.
Directional
Scaling filter Wavelet filter filter Thresholding
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A nine-tap Quadrature mirror Max-flat filter Histogram based
low-pass filter of the scaling filter
which are associated with a wavelet multiresolution analysis. In-
creasing the number of orientations improves the precision with
which events with different dips are separated, but it also increases
the runtime of the algorithm. The default setting in ShearLab 3D is
suitable for edge-detection applications in seismic data. It is worth
saying that the data spectrum is not the main variable in this algo-
rithm because whatever the frequency band of the data is, the edge-
detection algorithm operates at the finest scale of decomposition
(Karbalaali et al., 2018).
We investigated the benefit of RGB blending of spectral compo-
nents. We tested spectral decomposition based on the fast Fourier
transform (FFT) and the wavelet transform using Gaussian and
Morlet wavelets and different frequency magnitudes with diverse
amounts of overlap between isofrequencies. Among many tested fre-
quency magnitudes and overlaps, spectral decomposition using FFT
with 25, 45, and 65 Hz isofrequencies gave the best result. Figure 8
reveals that the prominent channel on the right is actually the latest
stage in a channel complex of stacked meandering channels. Also,
the channels in the center of the display are more continuous than
the displays obtained with discontinuity attributes. The RGB result
shows more details than the edge-detection attributes. This is attrib-
uted to the fact that RGB blending of spectral components is capable
of detecting features at subseismic scale as features get into the tuning
range. This effect allows interpreting the image in terms of thickness
variations. Qualitatively, we can say in this case that the red to pink
colors in Figure 8 may indicate thicker channel parts, whereas the
green to blue colors correspond to thinner channel parts.
CONCLUSION
Shallow channels in the South Caspian Sea are known geohazards
that may cause significant problems in drilling operations. To opti-
mally detect these channels in our 3D data set, we preprocessed the
data with an acquisition footprint removal algorithm. We created a
dense set of horizons that enabled chronostratigraphic slicing. In this
way, we found a level exhibiting clear channels for further study. We
then investigated the benefits of edge-sensitive attributes: similarity,
semblance, curvature, and the newly defined shearlet edge-detection
algorithm. Semblance and similarity gave very similar results with a
preference for similarity because this picked up slightly more details.
The shearlet transform also detected channel edges, but it also en-
hanced remnants of the footprint. Curvature attributes outperformed
the other three edge-detection attributes. Channel edges are imaged
best on curvature displays, and the attributes carry additional geo-
logic information. Edges on the positive curvature indicate levies,
whereas edges on the negative curvature correspond to near-channel
centers. In addition, the sedimentation direction can be inferred from
lateral changes in the curvature response. Finally, we studied RGB
blending of spectral decomposition components. This analysis re-
B321
Shearlets on the Shearlets on the
horizontal cone vertical cone
Thinning at the finest scale at the finest scale
Morphological 5 3
operation
vealed features at the subseismic resolution and lateral variations that
can be qualitatively interpreted in terms of thickness variations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first author is grateful to Khazar Exploration and Production
Oil Company for the financial support of the study and provision of
the real data. We would like to thank the authors of ShearLab 3D
for allowing access to the code of the digital shearlet transform. We
also appreciate H. Jaglan from dGB Earth Sciences for assisting to
transfer the result of the shearlet edge-detection algorithm from
MATLAB to OpendTect software.
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