Exploring seismic data in the flowline domain: Automated extraction of unconformities, sequence boundaries, and conformable reflections

Abstract Working with seismic data in the flowline domain offers a promising approach to improving geologic interpretation, particularly in identifying unconformities and sequence boundaries. This method utilizes the seismic differential dip field as a fluid velocity field to extract geometric information and generate flowlines. These flowlines, treated as distinct objects, represent the paths of hypothetical particles moving along local velocity vectors within the seismic data. By applying a scoring system based on overlapping paths, major unconformities and sequence boundaries can be efficiently identified and extracted. An additional advantage of the flowline representation is its ability to capture the lateral regional context of seismic geometries, enabling straightforward grouping into stratigraphic sequences through simple clustering techniques, which simplifies the categorization of first-order stratigraphic units. Furthermore, refining the flowline paths based on relative amplitude changes improves their alignment with conformable reflections, supporting a flowline-based approach to effectively track these reflections. The flowline approach can also be extended into three dimensions, providing a straightforward tool for preliminary geologic analysis in 3D seismic data. The flowline-based workflows are demonstrated through application to two seismic sections, one of which addresses challenges posed by faulted areas and showcases the strategies used to resolve them.