Improving visibility of discontinuities on seismic data with colour processing technique – resolution concept across scales

The purpose of this paper is to show the application of the colour-processing technique to enhance the visibility of fractures and faults for more detailed structural interpretation. Colour-processing is a post-migration, post-processing technique that can be applied in an interpretational platform to produce a structurally enhanced volume using the principles of colour theory. Unlike simple colour blending techniques, which overlay different datasets using different colour channels (most commonly red–green–blue), the colour processing technique produces an enhanced volume that can be exported as a seismic volume (i.e. a segy file). Other methods used to assess the colour-processing include the application of seismic attributes (variance, dip estimates and ant tracking), seismic sequence stratigraphy, and analysis of microimager. The study revealed that the colour processing technique is suited for structural analysis, showing that the ant-tracking attribute classifies approximately 36% as dislocations, compared with input seismic data, where only 9% of the volume is associated with dislocations. Application of the colour-processing technique enabled the interpretation of up to 4 times as many dislocations per unit area of the seismic 3D volume, as exemplified by 3D land seismic data from an area of app 260 square km in the central part of the Carpathian Foreland. However, colour processing fails to enhance the visibility of sedimentary features on seismic data and does not preserve relative amplitudes needed for reservoir prospecting. The results suggest that the proposed methods can be used to limit uncertainties and build more precise geological models, which can be applied in many prospecting applications, such as carbon capture and storage, hydrocarbon prospecting and storage, geothermal systems, and others.