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Seismic Attributes- A Review

D.Subrahmanyam*, P.H.Rao
Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd., India., E-Mail: [email protected]

Summary

Seismic attributes are the components of the seismic data which are obtained by measurement, computation, and other
methods from the seismic data. Seismic Attributes were introduced as a part of the seismic interpretation in early
1970’s. Since then many new attributes were derived and computed. Most of these attributes are of commercial interest
and, use of many of the attributes, are yet to be understood by many interpreters and users. The main aim of this paper
is to review the most commonly used Seismic attributes and their use as interpretation tool and reservoir
characterization.

Introduction following classification is taken from the paper

“Seismic Trace Attributes And Their Projected Use In
Seismic attributes can be conveniently defined as “the Prediction Of Rock Properties And Seismic Facies” by
quantities that are measured, computed or implied Rock Solid Images.
from the seismic data”. From the time of their
introduction in early 1970’s seismic attributes gone a The Seismic Attributes are classified basically into 2
long way and they became a aid for geoscientists for categories.
reservoir characterization and also as a tool for quality
control. Different authors introduced different kinds of 1. Physical Attributes
attributes and their uses. With the introduction of 3D 2. Geometric attributes
seismic techniques and associated technologies and
introduction of seismic sequence attributes, coherence Physical Attributes
technology in mid 1990’s, and spectral decomposition
in late 1990’s has changed the seismic interpretation Physical attributes are defined as those attributes
techniques and provided essential tools that were not which are directly related to the wave propagation,
available for geoscientists earlier. With the lithology and other parameters. These physical
introduction of 3D visualization techniques, use of attributes can be further classified as pre-stack and
seismic attributes has attained a new dimension. post-stack attributes. Each of these has sub-classes as
Development of a wide variety of seismic attributes instantaneous and wavelet attributes. Instantaneous
warrants a systematic classification. Also a systematic attributes are computed sample by sample and indicate
approach is needed to understand the use of each of continuous change of attributes along the time and
these attributes and also their limitations under space axis. The Wavelet attributes, on the other hand
different circumstances. represent characteristics of wavelet and their
amplitude spectrum.
Classification of Seismic Attributes
Geometrical Attributes
Though the purpose of this paper is to understand the
purpose of different attributes that can be used as tools The Geometrical attributes are dip, azimuth and
in interpretation, it is useful to understand the discontinuity. The Dip attribute or amplitude of the
classification of different attributes at this stage. The data corresponds to the dip of the seismic events. Dip
is useful in that it makes faults more discernible. The
amplitude of the data on the Azimuth attribute
corresponds to the azimuth of the maximum dip
Amplitude
direction of the seismic feature.
Anomaly
For further information on classification above
mentioned paper may please be referred.

Post-Stack Attributes
Post stack attributes are derived from the stacked data.
The Attribute is a result of the properties derived from
the complex seismic signal.
(a)
The concept of complex traces was first described by
Tanner, 1979. The complex trace
is defined as:
CT(t)=T(t)+iH(t)
where:
CT(t) = complex trace
T(t) = seismic trace
H(t) = Hilbert’s transform of T(t)
H(t) is a 900 phase shift of T(t)

Signal Envelope (E) or Reflection Strength

The Signal Envelope (E) is calculated from the
complex trace by the formula:
E(t)=SQRT{T2(t)+H2(t)}
The envelope is the envelope of the seismic signal. It
has a low frequency appearance and only positive (b)
amplitudes. It often highlights main seismic features. Fig.1. Normal seismic section (a) showing high amplitude
anomaly at shallow depth (b) showing the amplitude attribute
The envelope represents the instantaneous energy of of the same section. Notice the High amplitude anomaly is
the signal and is proportional in its magnitude to the highlighted more clearly in amplitude envelope
reflection coefficient.
The envelope is useful in highlighting discontinuities, Envelope Derivative (RE)
changes in lithology, faults, changes in deposition, This is the time derivative of the envelope.
tuning effect, and sequence boundaries. It also is RE(t)=dE(t)/dt
proportional to reflectivity and therefore useful for

The derivative of envelope highlights the
analyzing AVO anomalies. If there are two volumes change in reflectivity and is also related to
that differ by constant phase shift only, their envelopes

the absorption of energy.
will be the same. Sharpness of the rise time relates to
This attribute is good for looking at packages of

absorption
amplitudes.

sharp interfaces
This attribute represent mainly the acoustic impedance
Shows discontinuities,
contrast, hence reflectivity. This attribute is mainly
It is used in computation of group propagation

useful in identifying:
direction. When compared with phase propagation

Bright spots
direction, it may indicate dispersive waves

gas accumulation
Sequence boundaries, major changes or Second Derivative of Envelope (DDE)

depositional environments This is given by:


Thin-bed tuning effects


Unconformities DDE(t)=d2E(t)/dt2


Major changes of lithology


Local changes indicating faulting The second derivative of the envelope highlights the
Spatial correlation to porosity and other interfaces very well - the places of change. This


lithologic variations attribute is not too sensitive to the amplitude and can
Indicates the group, rather than phase highlight even weak events.
component of seismic wave propagation.
  Shows all reflecting interfaces visible within


seismic band-width


Shows sharpness of events


Indicates sharp changes of lithology
Large changes of the depositional
environment, even corresponding envelope


amplitude may be low.
Very good presentation of image of the
subsurface within the seismic bandwidth

Instantaneous Phase

(t)=arc tan |H(t)/T(t)|

Instantaneous phase attribute is given by

are related to the envelope E(t) and the phase (t) by

The seismic trace T(t) and its Hilbert transform H(t)
(a)
T(t)=E(t)cos((t))
the following relation:

H(t)=E(t)sin((t))
Instantaneous phase is measured in degrees (-, ). It
is independent of amplitude and shows continuity and
discontinuity of events. It shows bedding very well.
Phase along horizon should not change in principle,
changes can arise if there is a picking problem, or if
the layer changes laterally due to “sink-holes” or other
phenomena.


This attribute is useful as


Best indicator of lateral continuity,
Relates to the phase component of the wave-


propagation.


Can be used to compute the phase velocity,
Has no amplitude information, hence all


events are represented, (b)
Shows discontinuities, but may not be the Fig 2: (a) showing the normal seismic section and (b) its
best. It is better to show continuities Phase section. Observe the continuity of the reflection events


Sequence boundaries, in Fig 2 (b).
Detailed visualization of bedding

 C(t)=cos((t))
configurations, Cosine of Instantaneous Phase C(t)
Used in computation of instantaneous
frequency and acceleration
Cosine of instantaneous phase is also independent of
amplitude and shows bedding very well. This attribute
is smoother than phase (which has discontinuities) and
thus is useful for automatic classification procedures.

Instantaneous Frequency

Instantaneous frequency is the time derivative of the

F(t)=d((t))/dt
phase, i.e., the rate of change of the phase:

Instantaneous frequency represents the mean


amplitude of the wavelet.
Instantaneous frequency can indicate bed


thickness and also lithology parameters.
Corresponds to the average frequency
(centroid) of the amplitude spectrum of the


seismic wavelet.
Seismic character correlator,
  Indicates the edges of low impedance thin Instantaneous Acceleration AC(t)

beds,
Hydrocarbon indicator by low frequency Instantaneous acceleration is the time derivative of the
anomaly. This effect is some times instantaneous frequency.


accentuated by the AC(t)=d(F(t))/dt
Unconsolidated sands due to the oil content


of the pores. Instantaneous acceleration highlights change in
Fracture zone indicator, appear as lower instantaneous frequency which may be indicative of

 
frequency zones this bedding or absorption.

 
Chaotic reflection zone indicator, Accentuates bedding differences,
Bed thickness indicator. Higher frequencies Higher resolution , may have somewhat


indicate sharp interfaces or thin shale higher noise level due to differentiation,
bedding, lower frequencies indicate sand May have some relation to elastic properties


rich bedding. of beds
Sand/Shale ratio indicator
Thin Bed Indicator

This attribute is described by Tanner, 1979. This

attribute is designed to highlight the location where
the instantaneous frequency jumps or goes in the
reverse direction.
These jumps could be the result of very close
reflectors, i.e., thin beds.

TB(t)=F(t)-F’(t)

For this attribute, calculation window length is used to


calculate the F’(t).
Computed from large spikes of
instantaneous frequency, indicate


overlapped events
Indicate thin beds, when laterally


continuous,
(a) Indicate non-reflecting zone, when it
appears laterally at random, like ‘salt and


pepper’,
Fine detail of bedding patterns

Instantaneous Bandwidth B(t)

This attribute is described by Barnes, 1992.

d(E(t))/dt
B(t)= -----------------
2. E(t)



This attribute highlights bedding very well.
Represents seismic data band-width sample
by sample. It is one of the high resolution


character correlators.
Shows overall effects of absorption and
(b) seismic character changes
Fig 3: (a) is the normal seismic section and (b) its
corresponding frequency section. The frequency section
shows a low frequency anomaly at shallow depths indicating Instantaneous Q
the presence of shallow gas. Compare this figure with Fig.
1(a), and 1(b)
* (instantaneous frequency) * (envelope)/derivative
This attribute is derived from the formula

of envelope.
Instantaneous Q is an attribute suggested by Barnes. Q
is the quality factor that is related to attenuation.
Instantaneous Q measures the high frequency


component of Q and shows local variations of Q.
Indicates local variation of Q factor, similar
to the relative acoustic impedance
computation from the seismic trace. Longer
wavelength variation should be computed by


spectral division and added to this attribute.
May indicate liquid content by ratioing
pressure versus shear wave section Q


factors.
Indicate relative absorption characteristics of
beds

Relative Acoustic Impedance

This attribute calculates the running sum of the trace (b)

Fig. 4: (a) is the normal seismic section and (b) is its
to which a low cut filter is applied. It is an indicator of
corresponding relative acoustic impedance section
impedance changes, in a relative sense. The low cut
filter is applied to remove DC shift which is typical in
impedance data. (If the value of the low cut filter is Pre-Stack Attributes
zero, then it is not applied.). The calculated trace is the
result of simple integration of the complex trace. It RMS velocities of reflectors

represents the approximation of the high frequency
component of the relative acoustic impedance. This may be Time Migration velocity analysis,
independent of major influence of dips. This is
used for sand/shale ratios estimation, high
pressure shale zone detection, major lithologic


change detection, and etc.


Zero offset pressure-wave seismic section,
Zero offset shear-wave seismic section


estimation,


Group velocity, phase velocity decomposition,
Trace envelope amplitude variation with


respect to offset,,
Instantaneous frequency variation with respect
to offset

Geometrical Attributes
Three directional attributes are available: Dip,
Azimuth, and maximum coherency direction. These
attributes measure the lateral relations in the data.
They are described as follows:
(a) • The Dip attribute or amplitude of the data
corresponds to the dip of the seismic
events. Dip is useful in that it makes faults more
discernible.
• The amplitude of the data on the Azimuth attribute
corresponds to the azimuth
of the maximum dip direction of the seismic feature.

Note that azimuth is a true value in degrees. Azimuth

can be calculated with respect to the North or inline
direction. Note also that dip is true for depth volumes
only. If input data is time or time migrated, the dip
represents relative values (time dip).
The derivation of the directional attribute is done by Spectral decomposition
considering several traces together to reveal the
geometry (dip and azimuth) of the beds. The Spectral Decomposition method replaces the
single input trace with a gather of traces corresponding
Discontinuity is a geometrical attribute, and measures to the spectral decomposition of the input attribute.
the lateral relations in the data. It is designed to The input to spectral decomposition is a seismic
emphasize the discontinuous events such as faults. volume. The output is several volumes, each one
High amplitude values on this attribute corresponds to representing a different frequency band.
discontinuities in the data, while low amplitude values Creating spectral decomposition attributes enables you
correspond to continuous features. Discontinuity to illuminate the structures with different frequency
varies between zero and one , where zero is bands to see if any of them gives you better resolution.
continuous and one is discontinuous. When doing interpretation it is a common practice to
The derivation of the attribute is done by considering look at instantaneous attributes such as envelope or
several traces together to reveal the discontinuity phase volumes. Spectral decomposition gives you
(geometry) of the beds. several such volumes. At a specific frequency band
certain size structures are more visible due to tuning


This attribute can be used in understanding effects, etc. This means that for example instead of


Coherency at maximum coherency direction looking at one phase volume for a cube of stacked


Minimum coherency direction data, you are able to view several of them and see if


Event terminations any single one shows a structure better.


Picked horizons Spectral decomposition is a form of wavelet


Fault detection transform. The wavelets are short temporal band
limited sine and cosine wavelets. In the Frequency

Zones of parallel bedding
Increment mode Gabor wavelets with equally spaced

Zones of chaotic bedding
central frequencies are designed and applied to the

Non-reflecting zones
data, whereas in the octave increment mode, Gabor-

Converging and diverging bedding patterns
Unconformities Morlet filters are designed with equally spaced central
frequencies in octave-frequency domain, hence their
representation in thefrequency axis will be unequally
spaced.
For n frequencies, in octave increments, between Flow
and Fhigh:
For i = 0...n-1
Fi =Flow{Fhigh/Flow)( i/n – 1)

Therefore for i = 0, F = Flow

For i = n-1 F=Fhigh
In spectral decomposition you use complex traces.
Basically a single trace is convolved with the first real
wavelet to get the real trace for the first frequency, and
the input trace is convolved with the first wavelet of
the imaginary part to get the imaginary trace. Then a
(a) complex trace attribute is constructed, such as
envelope, phase, etc. This step is repeated for each
filtered wavelet operating on the same trace and obtain
band limited traces. (This is very similar to filtering
the input trace with several band limited filters and
creating a new trace from each filter.) In spectral
decomposition the input is a single trace and the
output is a series of traces each with a different
frequency band.

The differences between the FFT type of attributes and

these is that FFT attributes give a representation of the
wavelet, meaning that when you do FFT of an input
trace, you get the spectrum of the source wavelet
(b) (assumption is that the reflection coefficients have
Fig: 5 (a) is the time slice and (b) is its corresponding white spectrum). When you take the FFT of a time
discontinuity time slice. Note the structural elements like limited area, because you did not include enough
faults were clearly brought out in the discontinuity slice. reflections (short in time) to make the white spectrum
assumption, you have the spectrum that is a
representation of the reflections coefficients. Also,
because you have a limited time window, your
resolution in the frequency domain is limited (the
shorter the window in time, the wider the frequency
band). That is why we refer to frequency bands, rather
than frequencies.

Conclusions
This paper discusses about the seismic attributes that
are useful as tools for drawing conclusion from the
interpretation of seismic data. Though many seismic
attributes are available this paper attempts to discuss
some of the important attributes. It may be noted that
these attributes are very useful tools analysis of a
single attribute may not provide a conclusive
definitive information. Instead, useful conclusions can
be drawn by using a combination of attributes
together. Understanding the attribute properties is
essential to draw the proper and meaningful
conclusions.

Acknowledgements
The authors express their sincere thanks to Sri. D.P.
Sahastrabudhe, ED, Basin Manager, Western Onshore
Basin, Vadodara for granting the permission to publish
the paper.

Suggested Reading:

1. Rock Solid Images, Seismic Attributes and

their projected use in prediction of rock
properties and seismic facies.
2. Seregey Formel, Local Seismic Attributes,
Geophysics, Vol. 72. No.3(May-June 2007);
P.A29-A33.
3. M. Turhan Taner, Seismic Attributes, CSEG
Recorder, September 2001, P 48-56
4. Satinder Chopra and Kurt Marfurt, Seismic
Attributes- A Promising aid for geologic
prediction, CSEG Recorder, 2006 Special
Edition, P. 110-121
5. Quantitative use of Seismic Attributes for
reservoir characterization by Articles from
The Leading Edge, October 2002, Vol. 21,
No. 10. This Volume contains a Special
section on Attributes.
6. Information from different resources and
sites from internet.
7. Information from help modules of Paradigm,
Landmark and Schlumberger software