Too Many Seismic Attributes - CSEG RECORDER

20/4/2020 Too many seismic attributes?
| CSEG RECORDER
Too many seismic attributes?

Arthur Barnes
LANDMARK GRAPHICS CORPORATION, COLORADO, USA
MAR 2006 | VOL. 31 NO. 03 | VIEW ISSUE
Are there too many seismic attributes? Their great number and variety is almost overwhelming.
How can one decide which ones to use? But it is not as bad as it looks. Throw away all the
unnecessary attributes and what is left over is quite manageable.
It’s easy to identify unnecessary seismic attributes. Just review your attributes in the light of these
common-sense principles:
Seismic attributes should be unique. You only need one attribute to measure a given
seismic property. Discard duplicate attributes. Where multiple attributes measure the same
property, choose the one that works best. If you can’t tell which one works best then it
doesn’t matter which one you choose.
Seismic attributes should have clear and useful meanings. If you don’t know what an
attribute means, don’t use it. If you know what it means but it isn’t useful, discard it. Prefer
attributes with geological or geophysical meaning; avoid attributes with purely
mathematical meaning.
Seismic attributes represent subsets of the information in the seismic data. Quantities that
are not subsets of the data are not attributes and should not be used as attributes.
Attributes that di er only in resolution are the same attribute; treat them that way.
Seismic attributes should not vary greatly in response to small changes in the data. Avoid
overly sensitive attributes.
Not all seismic attributes are created equal. Avoid poorly designed attributes.
Unnecessary attributes are thus duplicates, or they are obscure or unstable or unreliable, or they
are not really attributes at all. Look rst for duplicate attributes, the most numerous kind of
unnecessary attribute. Many basic seismic properties, particularly amplitude, frequency, and
discontinuity, are quanti ed through multiple seismic attributes variously computed.
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20/4/2020 Too many seismic attributes? | CSEG RECORDER
Figure 1. Nine maps of common amplitude attributes computed in a 100 ms window (25
samples) at a constant time. The maps all show about the same picture.
Consider the most important seismic property, amplitude. Figure 1 compares nine common
amplitude attribute maps. These maps are all similar. Crossplots between them reveal fairly linear
or quadratic relationships demonstrating that they contain nearly the same information (Figure
2). Rarely are the di erences between these attributes important, and rarely is anything gained by
using more than one. Average re ection strength nearly always su ces.
Figure 2. Crossplots derived from the amplitude maps of Figure 1. The simple linear and
quadratic relations demonstrate that these attributes all contain the same information.
The plot of maximum peak amplitude versus maximum trough amplitude appears to be
an exception, but the relatively greater scatter is due more to randomness in the
attributes than to inherently di erent information.
You may prefer average energy because it exhibits more contrast than re ection strength. Use it,
but recognize that average energy has exactly the same information as RMS amplitude and
almost the same as re ection strength. Its greater contrast is due only to how it presents the
information. Perhaps also you want to use the maximum amplitude attribute because in your
application it has useful meaning, and the di erences between average re ection strength and
maximum amplitude are signi cant – if you truly know what they mean.
Figure 3. Four discontinuity attributes based on correlation, semblance, covariance, and

correlation weighted by trace magnitude, computed as maps in a 60 ms window (15
samples) at a constant time. These attributes are nearly identical.
Take a more involved seismic property, discontinuity. Figure 3 compares four common
discontinuity attributes based on correlation, semblance, covariance, and weighted correlation.
Their crossplots are given in Figure 4. Despite signi cant computational di erences and
enthusiastic claims to the contrary, these four discontinuity attributes are so nearly the same that
it doesn’t matter which one you use.
Figure 4. Crossplots derived from the discontinuity attribute maps of Figure 3 are fairly
linear, demonstrating that the attributes are, for all practical purposes, equivalent.
Many duplicate attributes masquerade as unique measures. Arc length is one of these. It is driven
by both amplitude and frequency, but amplitude usually dominates to the extent that it
resembles re ection strength (Figure 5). You probably don’t need it. Actually, you really don’t need
it – arc length is nonsense. De ned as the length along the wiggles of a seismic trace in amplitude-
time space, it has no useful meaning because amplitude and time are unrelated. Discard it.
Figure 5. Arc length compared with re ection strength, computed as maps in a 100 ms
window (25 samples) at a constant time. The roughly linear crossplot indicates that they
have about the same information.
Amplitude variance also masquerades as a unique measure. Intuitively it should be unique, or at

least much di erent than amplitude attributes such as re ection strength. But for zero mean data
a standard variance equals the average energy, which is the square of the RMS amplitude, which
is a close approximation to re ection strength. As a result, amplitude variance derived directly

from seismic data resembles most amplitude attributes (refer to Figures 1 and 2).
An e ective amplitude variance attribute can be de ned as the variance of the re ection strength
normalized by the average re ection strength. This normalized variance is di erent than
amplitude and noisier than standard variance (Figure 6). Whether it is also useful must be
determined empirically.
Figure 6. Standard amplitude variance compared with the variance of the re ection
strength normalized by the average re ection strength, computed as maps in a 100 ms
window (25 samples) at a constant time. Their crossplot is a random scatter,
demonstrating that they contain di erent information.
Attributes based on principal components often masquerade as independent measures. While

principal components are naturally independent, normalized principal components tend to be
well correlated. Figure 7 shows two seismic discontinuity attributes, one computed from the
normalized rst principal component, PC1, and another computed from the normalized second
principal component, PC2. These look like mirror images of each other. A corresponding attribute
based on the third principal component, PC3, resembles a fuzzy version of PC1. Ratios of principal
components, such as the Karhunen-Loeve signal complexity (what does that mean?), can also look
like PC1 and PC2. These principal component attributes all show the same picture. Keep PC1 and
discard the others.
Figure 7. A comparison of the normalized rst principal component, PC1, and the
normalized second principal component, PC2, computed as maps in a 100 ms window (25
samples) at a constant time. These discontinuity attributes resemble mirror-images of
each other and their crossplot suggests the linear relationship, PC2 1 – PC1.
Further muddying the waters, some attributes have duplicate names. Re ection strength, trace
envelope, and instantaneous amplitude are the same attribute. Covariance discontinuity, eigen-
structure discontinuity, and the normalized rst principal component, PC1, are the same attribute,
which initially was called “Amoco C3.” Response attributes are also called wavelet attributes. The
quadrature trace and the imaginary trace are the same – but this is a poor example. The
quadrature trace is just a 90° phase rotation and is not an attribute since it does not subset the
information.
Some attributes are more than similar, they are essentially identical. Identical attributes contain
exactly the same information and di er merely in how they present this information. As already
noted, RMS amplitude and average energy are identical. Other identical attributes include
instantaneous phase and cosine of the phase, and dip-azimuth (re ection dip combined with
re ection azimuth) and shaded relief. Choose the one you prefer and discard the other.
Cosine of the phase is not only identical to instantaneous phase, it is also nearly identical to a
strong automatic gain (Figure 8). In fact, cosine of the phase is the ultimate automatic gain,
completely removing all amplitude contrasts. Treat it more as a process than as an attribute.
Figure 8. A seismic line processed with (a) cosine of the phase, and with (b) a strong AGC
using a 28 ms window (7 samples). They are almost indistinguishable.
Though dip-azimuth and shaded relief are identical attributes, they look quite di erent (Figure 9).
Dipazimuth combines re ection dip and re ection azimuth through a circular two dimensional
colorbar for which azimuth controls the hue and dip controls the intensity. Shaded relief
combines re ection dip and azimuth to simulate the shading of illuminated re ections, for which
a gray-scale colorbar su ces. You don’t need both.
Figure 9. A comparison along a time slice of (a) dip-azimuth and (b) shaded relief. These
attributes look very di erent and yet present the same information.
Attributes that lack clear and useful meaning might well be labeled useless. Such attributes are
more common than you would think. Arc length and the Karhunen-Loeve signal complexity are
useless attributes. Average instantaneous phase is another useless attribute. The more
instantaneous phase is averaged, the more predictable and the more worthless the result: zero.
Average unwrapped instantaneous phase is scarcely better. The “slope of the instantaneous
frequency” may have clear mathematical meaning (or may not), but its geological meaning is so
obscure that it is useless. Response phase and response frequency are also useless if you insist
that they describe the seismic source wavelet as advertised. They succeed only in the absence of
noise or re ection interference. Simply put, they succeed only in the absence of real data. You can
use these attributes empirically, of course, recognizing what they really record. Response phase
records the apparent phase of re ections, composite or solitary, at envelope peaks, and helps in
tracking events. Response frequency acts like a nonlinear lter for instantaneous frequency,
producing a cleaner attribute free of spikes and negative values. This has utility, but a weighted
average frequency is better because it o ers the same bene ts plus it is smoother and has
simpler meaning (Figure 10).
Figure 10. A comparison on a seismic line of (a) instantaneous frequency, (b) response
frequency, and (c) weighted average frequency computed in a 52 ms window (13
samples); the original seismic data is overlain in black variable area format. Both
response frequency and weighted average frequency improve the interpretability of
instantaneous frequency, but weighted average frequency is smoother and easier to
comprehend. Red is low frequency, blue is high.
Changing the resolution of an attribute does not change its nature. An attribute remains
inherently the same whether computed in a short window or in a long window. This is obvious for
attributes like RMS amplitude and energy half-time, but it is also true, though not obvious, of
instantaneous frequency and weighted average frequency. They are really the same frequency
attribute with di erent resolution. You might reasonably use both to investigate targets with
di erent resolution, but recognize they are the same attribute.
Weighted average frequency can be computed either in the time domain as weighted average
instantaneous frequency, or in the frequency domain as weighted average Fourier spectral
frequency. With appropriate weights, these completely di erent methods produce exactly the
same results. Similarly, bandwidth can be quanti ed as a spectral variance either in the time-
domain or in the frequency domain. Some multi-dimensional attributes, such as azimuth, dip, or
dip variance (a measure of re ection parallelism), can also be generated in either domain.
Because these attributes are the same in either domain, it is pointless to compute them in both
domains. Not all spectral attributes are so exible. Spectral kurtosis, for example, must be
computed in the frequency domain, but as it has no inherent geological or geophysical meaning,
you probably don’t need it.
Attributes that are sensitive to small perturbations in the data are unstable. Apparent polarity is
an example. It is de ned as the sign of the seismic data at envelope peaks scaled by the envelope
peak and held constant in each interval around a peak. This works ne for clean zero-phase data
free of re ection interference, but it is ambiguous for thin-bed re ections, which have an
apparent phase of around 90°. Figure 11 shows this for simple synthetic data. As long as the
re ections don’t interfere, apparent polarity is correct, but where they do interfere, apparent
polarity ips randomly from trace to trace. The same problem occurs on real data. Discard
apparent polarity and use response phase instead. Attributes that count the integral number of
peaks or troughs in an interval are also unstable, as they are sensitive to small changes in interval
de nition. The details shown by these attributes cannot be trusted; avoid them.
Figure 11. Illustration of the instability of apparent polarity. The synthetic data is
composed of three re ections with a small amount of random noise. The top re ection
has positive polarity, the bottom re ection has negative polarity, and the middle
re ection is a composite of two re ections 4 milliseconds apart. The composite re ection
looks like a single re ection with 90° of phase for which the apparent polarity ips
randomly. Every 20th trace is overlain in wiggle format. Red is positive polarity, blue is
negative.
Beware of di erences between programs for generating seismic attributes. Aside from incorrect
algorithms, which especially plague instantaneous frequency, the same attribute produced by
competing programs can di er substantially due to implementation details. One such detail
regards the windowing, which is the way an algorithm selects seismic data from an interval.
Attributes are lters, and like any lter they should employ tapered windows to reduce Gibb’s
e ects. Non-tapered or “boxcar” windows are nonetheless widely used. Figure 12 compares the
e ect of a boxcar window with that of a tapered window of the same length in the computation of
energy half-time. The boxcar window gives rise to banding in the time domain and ringing in the
frequency domain, which are the Gibb’s e ects. The tapered window produces a sharper image
and a smoother power spectrum. Where possible, avoid attributes with ringy spectra.
Figure 12. Energy half-time computed with (a) a boxcar window, and with (b) a Hamming
window. Both windows are 60 ms window long (15 samples ms). The Hamming window
prevents spectral ringing and provides a clearer image.
Energy half-time is a measure of amplitude change. Use it in this sense. Optimistic descriptions
that suggest it to be a lithologic indicator are wrong.
I could review many more seismic attributes, including waveform, spectral attributes, curvature,
AVO attributes, and others, to weed out the unnecessary ones. But I have made my point: there
are too many duplicate attributes, too many useless attributes, and too many misclassi ed
attributes. This breeds confusion and makes it hard to apply attributes e ectively. Reduce your
attributes to a manageable subset. Discard duplicate and dubious attributes, prefer attributes
that make intuitive sense, understand resolution, distinguish processes from attributes, and avoid
poorly designed attributes. Tables 1 and 2 summarize these ideas. Table 1 lists all the attributes
mentioned here, while Table 2 lists only those worth keeping. Table 1 looks impressive but is too
confusing to be helpful. In contrast, Table 2 is more honest and much clearer, and consequently is
more useful.
Do you have too many seismic attributes? Throw away the ones you don’t need and your attribute
analysis will improve.
Amplitude Phase Frequency Discontinuity Miscellaneous
instantaneous instantaneous correlation

re ection strength arc length
phase frequency discontinuity
weighted
cosine of phase semblance
trace envelope average energy half-time
frequency discontinuity
instantaneous
instantaneous apparent polarity weighted covariance

quadrature trace
amplitude spectral frequency average Fourier discontinuity
eigen-structure
response
RMS amplitude response phase discontinuity dip-azimuth
frequency
(combined)
average or total spectral

average phase PC1 shaded relief
absolute amplitude bandwidth
maximum peak, spectral

Karhunen-Loeve
minimum trough unwrapped phase frequency PC2
signal complexity
amplitudes variance
average energy, total

spectral kurtosis PC3 azimuth, dip
energy
standard amplitude instantaneous

Amoco C3 dip variance
variance frequency slope
normalized amplitude
parallelism
variance
Table 1. A list of all the seismic attributes mentioned in this paper categorized by the properties that they
measure.
Amplitude Phase Frequency Discontinuity Miscellaneous
re ection strength response phase frequency discontinuity shaded relief
normalized amplitude variance bandwidth azimuth, dip
energy half-time (amplitude change) parallelism

Table 2. The list of seismic attributes from Table 1 after ruthless clean-up.
Acknowledgements
I thank Seitel Data Ltd. for permission to publish the seismic data used in Figures 1 through 7, and
I thank the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS, for permission to publish the
data used in Figure 9.
About the Author(s)
References
Appendices
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20/4/2020 Too many seismic attributes?

Too many seismic attributes?

MAR 2006 | VOL. 31 NO. 03 | VIEW ISSUE

Figure 3. Four discontinuity attributes based on correlation, semblance, covariance, and

Amplitude variance also masquerades as a unique measure. Intuitively it should be unique, or at

is a close approximation to re ection strength. As a result, amplitude variance derived directly

Attributes based on principal components often masquerade as independent measures. While

Amplitude Phase Frequency Discontinuity Miscellaneous

instantaneous instantaneous correlation

instantaneous apparent polarity weighted covariance

average or total spectral

maximum peak, spectral

average energy, total

standard amplitude instantaneous

Amplitude Phase Frequency Discontinuity Miscellaneous

re ection strength response phase frequency discontinuity shaded relief

normalized amplitude variance bandwidth azimuth, dip

energy half-time (amplitude change) parallelism

About the Author(s)

Sorry, no results were found.

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