Improving Resolution With Spectral Balancing-A Case Study: M Fatima, Lavendra Kumar, RK Bhattacharjee, PH Rao, DP Sinha

P-299
Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing- A Case study

M Fatima, Lavendra Kumar, RK Bhattacharjee, PH Rao, DP Sinha
Western Offshore Basin, ONGC, Panvel, Mumbai
Summary:
The resolution limit of seismic data is a complex issue that involves on wavelet frequency, phase characteristics and data quality.
Spatial as well as temporal resolution is the key to extraction of stratigraphic detail from the seismic data. Interpreters also feel
difficulty while integrating seismic, VSP and log data due to higher spectral contents of VSP and Log data and therefore expect
comparable bandwidth of the seismic data. For getting greater reflection detail from seismic data utmost care is required at the
acquisition stage. Attempts are also to be made during processing stage to enhance the spectral bandwidth. Present attempt deals
with the enhancing the resolution through Pre-stack time migration and spectral balancing of the data acquired in an area of
Mumbai offshore and processed onboard up to post stack migration. The main objective of interpretation of the data was to
locate porosity development within the carbonates by using methods like acoustic inversion. This was a challenging task for the
interpreter, as the bandwidth variation between log data and seismic was huge. It is felt necessary to enhance the seismic data
bandwidth at the time of processing by using optimized spectral balancing and use that data for inversion study.
Pre- stack time migration and spectral balancing techniques of improving the resolution were attempted on the data. Rigorous
testing was carried out for the application of spectral balancing on PSTM gathers and volume. Comparison of results suggested
spectral balancing to be applied on PSTM volume than on gathers. Significant improvement has been obtained in stratigraphic
details while interpreting the data of this prospect of South Mumbai High. Inversion studies were carried out using the spectrally
balanced data and the lowering of impedance has been identified in a zone around the basement. A well drilled in this area has
produced hydrocarbons from the identified zone. This has clearly demonstrated the usage of spectral balancing to obtain better
attributes studies and porosity estimations in carbonates.
Introduction:
Enhancing the frequency contents of surface seismic data
has always been a quest for geophysicists ever since the
seismic method was introduced. In fact, seismic resolution
is the key to extraction of stratigraphic detail from the
seismic data. Seismic resolution comprises two aspects the vertical resolution and horizontal resolution. The
vertical or temporal resolution is concerned with the ability
to distinguish two close seismic events corresponding to
different depth levels. The horizontal or spatial resolution is
concerned with the ability to distinguish and recognize two
laterally displaced features as two distinct adjacent events.

Both aspects are important for interpreting small features
on seismic data. Migration procedures are usually put in
place for collapsing the Fresnel zones that enhance spatial
resolution in addition to migration of the events to its
correct position. Various Prestack imaging techniques in
time and depth domain have improved the spatial
resolution. Focusing our attention to the temporal or
vertical resolution requires increasing bandwidth of the
seismic data. Widess (1973) proposed /8 as the resolution
limit, being the predominant wavelength. In the presence
of noise resolution is usually taken to be only /4.
Western Offshore Basin, ONGC, Panvel, Mumbai
Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing
However, wavelength is the yardstick for resolution which

in turn depends on velocity and frequency. Since, there is
nothing we can do for velocity, which shows a general
increasing trend with depth, the key factor that determines
resolution is frequency. For getting greater reflection detail
from seismic data utmost care is required at the acquisition
stage to acquire higher frequency data. Attempts are also to
be made during processing stage to enhance the spectral
bandwidth.
It is common observation that seismic waves propagating
through the earth are attenuated. In contrast to spherical
spreading, this loss is frequency dependent i.e. higher
frequencies are absorbed more rapidly than lower
frequencies resulting in narrow frequency spectrum of
recorded energy towards lower end of spectrum of input
energy. Moreover, absorption appears to vary with the
lithology of the medium. There is need to enhance the
frequency content during processing of seismic data to
make subtle geologic features identifiable. But
enhancement of frequency may also leads to an increase in
noise levels along with higher resolution and hence careful
approach is required. There are many approaches for the
frequency enhancement of seismic data that range from
spiking deconvolution, Q-compensation, spectral balancing
to loop reconvolution (Young, 2005). Curvature attributes
(Satinder Chopra, 2007) is also a powerful tool for
improving the resolution and helps in mapping channels,
faults and other stratigraphic features. Conventional way of
improving the resolution of seismic data is spiking
deconvolution (Yilmaz, 1987) which designs an inverse
filter to compress the seismic wavelet into an impulse. The
process is more commonly applied on gathers. Spectral
balancing sometimes called whitening or broadening is a
process applied to improve resolution of the seismic data.
In this paper, Spectral balancing is tested on PSTM gathers
and stacked volume on a dataset from Mumbai offshore
resulting in improved resolution. The dataset used for the
study is 3D seismic vintage from Mumbai offshore block of
western offshore basin. The objective of this study is to
enhance the bandwidth of seismic data enabling
identification of impedance variation on inverted data for
interpreting
carbonates.
the
porosity
development
within
the
Theory:
The objective of spectral balancing is to boost the
frequencies to obtain perfect resolution. While this
spectrum could in theory be obtained, in practice it would
likely result in the boosting of noise at low and high
frequencies. More sensible would be to balance the data
within its own bandwidth (Figure 1). Spectral balancing
splits the dataset into several narrow frequency bands by
bandpass filtering. Each frequency bands is equalized by its
scaling function which depends upon the amplitude levels
in this band. All these scaled frequency bands together are
added to obtain the balanced sections. Some applications
allow a percentage of the input data to be added back to
improve the results. Rigorous testing needs to be performed
on the data to enhance the frequency spectra within
sensible bandwidth.
Figure 1: Spectral Balancing
B. Spectral Balancing:
Figure 2: Velocity analysis
Improving the Resolution:

A. PSTM:
Onboard processed decon gathers which has been subjected
to pre-processing, multiple removal and deconvolution
were taken for further processing for improving the
resolution. The data has been regularized for foldage
resulting in uniform foldage as well as recovery of missing
offsets before pre-stack time migration. PSTM on target
lines at an interval of 20 inlines (500 mts.) were carried
with the available DMO velocity. RMS velocity (Figure 2)
has been updated with the analysis on PSTM gathers of
target lines in close grid to obtain final RMS velocity
volume. Various aperture sizes were also tested to obtain
better image and improved resolution with the PSTM.
Spectral balancing analyses were carried out on PSTM

gathers as well as stacked volume. A number of frequency
ranges were tested for spectral balancing. Spectral
Balancing of frequencies from 5 to 90 Hz provided good
result in improving the resolution without increasing noise.
The spectral balancing of frequencies beyond 90 Hz
produces more noises. The spectral balancing on PSTM
gathers has been applied and resulting stacked section is
compared with the balancing applied on PSTM stacked
volume (Figure 3). It is observed from the comparison that
spectral balancing on stacked volume provided better
resolution than balancing on gathers and then stacking the
balanced gathers. The comparison of PSTM section and
frequency spectrum before and after spectral balancing is
shown in Figure 4 & 5. It is evident from the section as
well as spectrum that appreciable improvement is obtained
from the application of spectral balancing. Balanced PSTM
volume is subjected to FXY decon for attenuating random
noise and it is provided to interpreters in bin size of 12.5 X
12.5 by interpolating an inline between two inlines.
Figure 3: Comparison Spec balancing on PSTM stacked volume (a) and Spec balancing on PSTM gathers (b).
Figure 4: Comparison of PSTM section without (a) and with (b) spectral balancing. The SpecBal data clearly brought out the
fault (black arrow) and also the improvement in resolution (red arrow) is clearly visible.
Figure 5: Comparison of amplitude spectrum of target zones in PSTM section without (a) and with (b) spectral balancing
Figure 6: Comparison of inline section processed earlier (a) and re-processed PSTM inline section with spectral balancing (b).
Figure 7: Comparison of crossline section processed earlier (a) and re-processed PSTM crossline section with spec balance (b).
Value addition:
Conclusion:
Reprocessing with targeted flow of PSTM and spectral

balancing rewarded with a much higher fidelity image of
the subsurface than earlier processed data. The results are
compared in inline as well as crossline direction. Figure 6
shows an inline PSTM section with earlier processed
section. The delineation of faults are much clearer and
clarified detailed geologic setting and improved structural
features. Appreciable improvement is also visible in a
crossline shown in Figure 7. The figure 8 a,b show the
comparison in zoomed section with the well-A postion.
Pre-stack time migration and subsequent spectral balancing

on PSTM stacked volume has resulted in improved
resolution. Spectral Balancing on stacked volume provided
better result than spectral balancing on gathers. Inversion
studies carried out using the spectrally balanced data
provided better attributes and identification of low
impedance zone. This has clearly demonstrated the usage
of spectral balancing to obtain better attributes studies and
porosity estimations in carbonates.
The spectral balanced PSTM data has been used to carry

out the inversion studies using the Hampson Russels
STRATA software. The P wave and density logs were
filtered to lower in frequencies of logs in order to obtain the
best match. Based on this the impedance of a zone of
around 20 msec above the basement was computed. This
has clearly brought out the zone of low impedance (Blue
green yellow and red zone; Figure-9). This zone is
interpreted to be zone of better porosity. Based on this a
well-A was drilled and the well produced hydrocarbons
from the above zone.
Figure 8: Part of seismic section of earlier processed data indicating low frequency (a) and part of seismic section of
Spectral balanced PSTM processed data indicating high frequency at the zone of interest (b)
Figure 9: The impedance map of the carbonate section of the area using the spectral balanced data. Yellow to red colour
indicates low impedance areas interpreted to be the porosity zones in the Carbonates.
References:
Acknowledgement:
Authors are grateful to Shri DK Pande, Director (E),
ONGC for permission to publish this work. Authors are
thankful to Shri SV Rao, ED-Basin Manager and Shri V.
Vairavan, GM(Geol) - Block Manager for providing
the necessary facilities and assigning the work to be
carried out. Authors are also thankful to Mr. D K
Vishnoi, CG(S), Mr. Srinivasa, CG(S) and Smt. Sucheta
Dhotiwala, CG for help and support during the
processing and inversion of the data.
Views expressed in this paper are that of the author
only and may not necessarily be of ONGC.
Widess, MB,1973, How

Geophysics,38,1176-1180
thin
is
thin
bed,
Young, P and Wild, A, 2005, Cosmetic Enhancement of

Seismic data by Loop Reconvolution, CSEG
Convention.
Chopra, S and Marfurt, K 2007 Seismic curvature
attributes for mapping faults/fratures and other
stratigraphic features,37-4 CSEG Recorder, November
2007.
Yilmaz, O,
publication.
1987
Siesmic
Data
Processing,
SEG

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P-299

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing- A Case study

laterally displaced features as two distinct adjacent events.

Western Offshore Basin, ONGC, Panvel, Mumbai

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

However, wavelength is the yardstick for resolution which

Figure 1: Spectral Balancing

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

Figure 2: Velocity analysis

Improving the Resolution:

Spectral balancing analyses were carried out on PSTM

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

Reprocessing with targeted flow of PSTM and spectral

Pre-stack time migration and subsequent spectral balancing

The spectral balanced PSTM data has been used to carry

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

Improving Resolution with Spectral Balancing

Widess, MB,1973, How

Young, P and Wild, A, 2005, Cosmetic Enhancement of

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