Use of seismic attributes for sediment classification

Fabio Radomille Santana, Arthur Ayres Neto

Laboratorio de Geologia Marinha, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. Milton Tavares de Souza S/N, Gragoata, 24210-346
Niteroi, RJ, Brasil
E-mail: radomille@gmail.com

Published in The Journal of Engineering; Received on 21st May 2014; Accepted on 24th October 2014

Abstract: A study to understand the relationships between seismic attributes extracted from 2D high-resolution seismic data and the seafloor’s
sediments of the surveyed area. As seismic attributes are features highly influenced by the medium through which the seismic waves are pro-
pagated, the authors can assume that it would be possible to characterise the geological nature of the seafloor by using these attributes. Herein,
a survey was performed on the continental margin of the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica, where both 2D high-resolution seismic data and
sediment gravity cores samples were simultaneously acquired. A computational script was written to extract the seismic attributes from the
data, which have been statistically analysed with clustering analyses, such as principal components analysis, dendrograms and k-means clas-
sification. The extracted seismic attributes are the amplitude, the instantaneous phase, the instantaneous frequency, the envelope, the time de-
rivative of the envelope, the second derivative of the envelope and the acceleration of phase. Statistical evaluation showed that geological
classification of the seafloor’s sediments is possible by associating these attributes according to their coherence. The methodologies here devel-
oped seem to be appropriate for glacio-marine environment and coarse-to-medium silt sediment found in the study area and may be applied to
other regions in the same geological conditions.

1 Introduction the present day have come from 2D or 3D multichannel seismic

The seismic method is a technique used by geologists and geophy-
sicists to survey rocks and sediment below the sea surface. It demon-
strated to be an appropriate tool to explore submarine areas and is
normally used in a wide variety of applications [1–4]. A valid
example that fits both of these applications is the pursuit of a
concise and trustworthy geophysical method that is capable of clas-
sifying the sediment or rocks of the area under research without the
need to acquire a large number of geological samples [5, 6].
Many companies already have a suite of software capable of ma-
nipulating seismic data in such a manner that geological structures
and geotechnical characteristics, such as porosity, poison ration,
bulk density, pore water content, interval velocity and more, can
be properly separated. Nonetheless, a geological classification for
the structures and geotechnical characteristics can never be attribu-
ted without at least one field sample, probing its real geological
characteristics [7].
In the case of research applications, studies have developed pat-
terns and mathematical equations, trying to explain the relationships
between the seismic attribute and the surveyed geological medium.
Many studies have shown that manipulating some properties of the
bottom reflected signal (e.g. scattered energy, frequency spectrum
and wavelet shape) allows the prediction of geological properties
at the seafloor [8–13]. Usually, those methods are calibrated by geo-
logical samples, which are acquired during the acoustic surveys. A
big challenge is to overcome this need of field samples, attempting to
decrease the duration of the geological survey and the financial costs.
One of the most commonly-applied techniques for extracting in-
formation from seismic data is the use of seismic attributes [12].
This technique first appeared in the 1970s with a high need to
solve some two-dimensional (2D) multichannel seismic interpret-
ation problems [14]. Using the complex trace theory (i.e. applying
the Hilbert transform to the time series seismic trace to obtain the
analytic trace) allowed one to obtain information on each seismic
trace recorded on field, for instance: instantaneous phase, instantan-
eous frequency and amplitude (later renamed as envelope).
Those attributes initially made the interpreter’s job a bit easier,
solving the lateral continuity of some reflectors and thin bed
issues [4, 14]. With the development of this technique, many attri-
butes were discovered through time. All attributes developed up to
data developed to support the oil industry, and have rarely been
applied to 2D high resolution single channel seismic data.
Using seismic attributes during geological interpretation of
seismic data allows one to overcome some imaging definition, reso-
lution and noise issues [4]. Moreover, the application of multiple
seismic attributes avoids human bias and offers a greater reliability
when it comes to lithology and rock physical properties prediction
[4, 7, 15].
A classification method was developed by Tegowski [12] to sep-
arate and organise each attribute by its physical basis and practical
use. At first they can be divided into two major groups: ‘pre-stack’
and ‘post-stack’ attributes, in relation to their period of computa-
tion, before or after the stacking process, respectively. As the stack-
ing process involves a multichannel record of a single shot, in order
to collapse random noise and enhance the coherent reflections, it
will not be necessary to explain and classify the pre-stack attributes
here, as we are interested in 2D high-resolution single-channel
seismic data. From the major groups, they can also be sub-divided
into three new categories: one in respect of the way they are com-
puted, those are instantaneous and wavelet attributes; one based
on their relation to the geology, those are physical and geometrical
attributes; and finally, one based on the interaction of the acoustic
wave within the stratigraphic beds, those are reflective and transmis-
sive attributes.
Seabed geological classification is an important tool for several
applications such as offshore engineering, habitat classification,
fisheries management, commercial shipping and marine mineral ex-
ploration. The use of acoustic tools is the best way of mapping the
seafloor. Depending on the technique and the frequency used it is
possible to provide a detailed characterisation of the seafloor. The
so-called acoustic sediment classification is based on echosounder
systems which operate in a frequency range between 24 and
200 kHz [13].
The basic process consists of analysing the echo-trace of acoustic
single-beam echosounders and inferring seabed type by its acoustic
response, where areas with the same acoustic response should have
the same seabed type or class, for example, mud, sand, gravel, rock
or seagrass. The characteristics of each echo-trace is determined in
terms of trace features such as maximum amplitude, echo-length,

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Fig. 1 Map showing the King George Island from South Shetland Islands on northwest antarctic peninsula, showing the distribution of core samples (black
dots) and surveyed seismic lines used on this work (black lines)

rise-time of first echo, amplitude quantiles, amplitude histogram,
power spectrum and wavelet packet transform [16], clustering the
traces in different groups according to their features.
The objective of this research is to test the use of seismic attri-
butes, already used to characterise oil and gas reservoirs for the geo-
logical characterisation of the seafloor based on a semi-automatic
algorithm and statistical combination identifying groups of
seismic attributes that respond in similar ways when they interact
with the seafloor.
The semi-automatic sediment classification algorithms always
use statistical methods to identify patterns, and therefore to
group the seismic data in order to classify different geological
features. There are a wide variety of statistical methods that
allow software to accomplish that, including knowledge-based
expert (trained human eye), linear and non-linear parameterisa-
tion (geostatistical), linear discrimination and principal compo-
nents analyses (PCAs) and artificial intelligence and neural
networks [17].
The linear discrimination and PCAs are basic statistical tools to
discriminate samples and to show the principal projections, in
which the data have their largest variance, making it possible to sep-
arate samples [18, 19]. These two statistical methods represent
crucial tools to identify patterns allowing the artificial intelligence
and neural networks techniques to properly work [18, 20].
Drake Passage and to the South it is separated from Antarctic
Peninsula by the Bransfield Strait. More than 90% of the island’s
area is covered by ice-caps (domes) and glaciers, Arctowski
Icefield being the largest dome covering the axial part of the
island [21].
Admiralty Bay is the largest embayment on King George
Island, incised from the South. It is a fiord whose branches pene-
trate deeply into the axial part of the island. Despite extensive ice
cover, numerous rock exposures along the coasts of Admiralty
Bay gives an insight into geological structure of King George
Island [20, 21, 23]. The bay cuts across a major tectonic
feature of the island, the Ezcurra Fault, which separates the north-
ern Mesozoic domain from the southern Tertiary domain. In the
inner part of Admiralty Bay, numerous sections of Mesozoic
stratiform volcanic-sedimentary succession are available, which
probably belong to the upper Jurassic. The formation of a thick

2 Geological aspects of study area

South Shetland Islands is an archipelago belonging to the Scotia
Ridge, linking South America with West Antarctica. The archipel-
ago is composed by a total of 18 islands, being King George, base
of many countries Antarctic research centres, the major island
among them and a frequently studied environment of the archipel-
ago. The King George Island lies ∼120 km North of the Antarctic
Peninsula and 940 km South of the Falkland Islands and occupies a Fig. 2 Flowchart illustrating the processing sequence inside the computa-
total area of 3687 km2, between latitudes 61° 00′S and 63° 37′S and tional main script, statistical process and final sediment classification
longitudes 53° 83′W and 62° 83′W. To the North, it borders on the method

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Fig. 3 Max_9 seismic line, position of AM2 sediment core sample (white arrow) and, respectively, its amplitude and instantaneous phase (on the right in the
figure) seismic attributes calculated through the main computational algorithm using the complex seismic trace theory (analytic trace)

Fig. 4 Geotechnical data recorded through MSCL for AM1 Fig. 5 Geotechnical data recorded through MSCL for AM2

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Fig. 6 Geotechnical data recorded through MSCL for AM4
Fig. 7 Geotechnical data recorded through MSCL for AM14
Fig. 9 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line Lin_2
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Fig. 8 Geotechnical data recorded through MSCL for AM17
basaltic–andesitic suite corresponds to a rather quiet period of
initial rifting and renewed subduction at the margin of the
Antarctic continent. Thick flood-basalt sheets have spread over
vast areas of an intra-arc graben, being fed from long fissures par-
allel with the present Bransfield Strait. Three volcanic cycles
probably corresponding to stages of rifting and subduction may
be recognised [21, 22].
The outer part of Admiralty Bay, between Bransfield Strait and
Ezcurra Inlet-Martle Inlet, exposes a comparatively complete,
nearly continuous section through the Tertiary (possibly Eocene
through Middle Miocene) stratiform-volcanic sedimentary
complex [21]. The coastal area on Bransfield Strait, between the
mouths of Admiralty Bay and King George Bay, is built of the
youngest stratiform sedimentary volcanic complex [21, 22]. These
deposits are remains of an andesitic island arc formed as a result
of subduction of the Pacific oceanic plate under the margin of the
Antarctic continent [21].
The Quaternary rocks include a group of intrusive and a plateau-
basalt and stratocone succession, as well as late Pleistocene and
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Fig. 10 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line Alm_4

Holocene moraines, outwash, raised beaches and recent coastal and
mountain slope deposits [22]. The late Pleistocene moraines are
poorly preserved [21]. There are a series of raised beaches and
storm-ridges and other features related to Holocene deglaciation
and land uplift [23, 24].
3 Data source and study area
All the seismic data were acquired using an Edge-Tech Sub-bottom
Profiler Model 3200XS 512i stern towed fish that operated on a
bandwidth within 0.4 to 2.5 kHz, with a maximum penetration of
200 m, depending on sediment conditions.
All the data used in this paper were acquired during the exped-
ition OPERANTAR-28, from the Brazilian Navy Operations for
the SEASOAM Project (Study of the Separation between
Antarctica and South America). The operations were performed
from October 26th to November 19th in 2009. During the cruise,
four different areas were surveyed, including Admiralty Bay,
Maxwell Bay, King George Bay and Bransfield Strait around
King George Island (Fig. 1).
During the cruise, five core samples were collected, using a
gravity core sampler with 6 m long and 400 kg total weight.
These samples were launched over or closed to one or more
seismic lines that have been previously recorded.

Fig. 11 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line Alm_6

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Fig. 12 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line Brans_53

4 Methodology flowchart is shown in Fig. 2 to better demonstrate the full steps

4.1 Seismic data
A computational script was written for the seismic dataset by using
MATLab R2007b software. This script allowed the extraction of the
seismic attributes and the preparation of sub-arrays to be analysed
through a statistical package named STATISTICA 10 Trial. The
procedures to build the script were designed based on the seismic
attributes which have been obtained through the complex seismic
trace theory (analytic trace) according to several authors [7, 14,
18, 25]. A new MATLab function (.m file) has been implemented
for each seismic attribute for an individual computation. A
of data processing. The input data for the main script have been
represented by the .sgy file (raw seismic sections acquired on
field). An implemented algorithm was designed to read and
prepare the .sgy file, to calculate the related seismic attributes and
to output them in a readable version for the statistical software.
For copyright reasons, the code of the algorithm will not be pre-
sented here.
The seismic attributes calculated by developed algorithm were
[14, 18]:
Amplitude (amp): Directly measured on field from the reflected
seismic wave. Its magnitude is directly proportional to the acoustic

Fig. 13 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line George_4

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Fig. 14 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line George_5

impedance contrast of the stratigraphic beds. It is always used for a
first visualisation of the seismic data. Most common and used attri-
bute.
Instantaneous phase (phi): Its behaviour along the time series ana-
lytic trace is also because of the acoustic impedance contrast. It is,
however, independent from the trace amplitude and is related to the
propagation phase of the wave front. It can be used to define the
geometrical shapes, such as lateral continuity, the sequence bound-
aries, the bedding configurations and the discontinuity.
Instantaneous frequency (freq): Computed as the time derivative of
the instantaneous phase, it is related to the centroid of the power
spectrum of the seismic wavelet. It can be associated to the wave
propagation and to the depositional environment.
Envelope (env): The total instantaneous energy and its magnitude is
proportional to the seismic trace amplitude. It is independent from
the phase and is highly influenced by the contrast of acoustic im-
pedance, and can be used to better interpret the reflectivity, to iden-
tify bright spots, possible gas accumulations, sequence boundaries,
major changes of lithology and depositional environment.
Time derivative of the envelope (dtenv): Shows the variation of the
energy of the reflected interfaces. It allows to observe how the
medium interacts with the wave through absorption. The rapid
rises indicate weak absorption effects and wide bandwidth. Good
to detect absorption effects.
Second derivative of the envelope (dt2env): Measures the sharpness
of the events on the envelope trace giving a special differentiation

Fig. 15 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line Max_4

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Fig. 16 Clustering analyses of one of the 21 sub-sampled seismic trace for seismic line Max_9

Table 1 Summary of the statistical clustering analyses pointing in grey colour the sub-total and total times the more frequent and coherent sets of seismic
attributes grouped on each and overall clustering analyses, respectively

Group of Dendrograms PCAs k-means Total

attributes
Euclidean Single Sub-total Principal Maximum-likelihood Sub-total Four Five Sub-total
dist. 1-pearson t components factor clusters clusters
dist. factor

amp/env — 144 144 154 190 344 — 225 225 713

amp/env/ 63 — 63 — — 0 181 — 181 244
dtenv/dt2env
amp/phi/env — 6 6 25 38 63 — — 0 69
amp/phi/freq/ — 33 33 — — 0 — — 0 33
env
amp/phi/freq/ — 30 30 — — 0 — — 0 30
env/dt2env
amp/freq/env/ 146 — 146 — — 0 — — 0 146
dtenv/dt2env/
acphi
amp/freq/env — — 0 16 21 37 — — 0 37
amp/freq/env/ — — 0 — — 0 1 — 1 1
dtenv/dt2env
phi/freq — 15 15 — 5 5 — — 0 20
phi/freq/ — 122 122 — — 0 — — 0 122
dt2env
phi/dtenv — — 0 — 16 16 — — 0 16
phi/dtenv/ — — 0 — 2 2 — — 0 2
dt2env/acphi
phi/dtenv/ — — 0 — 12 12 — — 0 12
acphi
phi/dt2env — — 0 1 22 23 — — 0 23
phi/acphi 1 — 1 — 7 7 — — 0 8
freq/dtenv/ — — 0 — 2 2 — — 0 2
acphi
freq/dt2env — 6 6 — — 0 — — 0 6
freq/acphi 63 — 63 — — 0 — — 0 63
dtenv/acphi — 184 184 79 53 132 — — 0 316
dtenv/dt2env — — 0 — — 0 — 210 210 210
dtenv/dt2env/ — 36 36 1 39 40 2 15 17 93
acphi
dt2env/acphi — — 0 6 70 76 — — 0 76

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Fig. 17 AM1 sediment core granulometric analyses
between the reflected interfaces within the seismic bandwidth.
Acceleration of phase (acphi): Computed as the time derivative of
the instantaneous frequency. It enhances the rapid frequency
rises, giving a better resolution of thin beds indicators and also
showing the wave absorption effect by rapid frequency dispersion
through unconsolidated layers.
4.2 Geological samples (multi sensor core logger MSCL data)
The geological samples were primarily scanned with a MSCL to
obtain the P-wave velocity and gamma density measures [24]
(Figs. 3–8). As the cores were sectioned every meter for logistical
purposes, the top and bottom of each meter section presented a
lid that made it impossible for the MSCL to read the physical
data inside those sections. To overcome this problem, a spline inter-
polation was performed between physical parameters logs that pre-
sented no data. After that, the sections were opened and described
by a trained geologist to obtain a visual and granulometric descrip-
tion of the core samples. Here, we present the raw geotechnical data
recorded through the MSCL on graphs, as follows.
4.3 Statistical analyses
After extracting the seismic attributes from the data, the output of
the script produced full seismic sections for each attribute, com-
puted in form of arrays (Figs. 2 and 3). The statistical software
(STATISTICA 10 Trial) has a memory limitation, so each attribute
must have a maximum of 2000 samples, totalising in this manner
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14 000 samples, for the seven attributes, to be analysed through
each classification method at a time.
The related seismic traces for each core sample on the seismic
data were identified using a supporting software, from Seismic
Micro-Technology, SMT Kingdom 8.6 32 bits. In this way, each at-
tribute array was sub-sampled selecting in each sub-array 21
seismic traces, allowing the statistical software to work on data.
Each one was located exactly where the geological samples were
collected and extrapolating ten seismic traces to the left and ten
seismic traces to the right. This sub-sampling process of the
seismic traces was performed, since these adjacent seismic traces
do not differ greatly from the calibration reference seismic trace, in-
cluding real physical and sedimentological classification data. The
seismic attributes need to be evaluated in the same manner, and
consequently they had to be standardised in a way that all attributes
presented the same scales of values, so they turned into comparable
statistical variables. This process is known as standardisation; in
this process, the seismic samples were subtracted by the mean of
the attribute and then divided for its standard deviations [27, 28].
Here, three different types of clustering analyses have been
applied, such as the dendrograms, the PCAs and the k-means clas-
sifications (Figs. 9–16). Each clustering analysis was applied using
two different methods of computing the distances between samples
and their overall variances. For example, the analysis of the dendro-
grams has one method using euclidean distance and another one
using the single linkage ‘1-Pearson r’ [29]; the PCAs has one
method using principal components factors and another one using
maximum-likelihood factors [30]. Finally, the k-means clustering
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Fig. 18 AM2 sediment core granulometric analyses
was applied to cluster four groups and other to cluster four groups
within the available variables (Figs. 9–16).
After the statistical process, the results were gathered and ana-
lysed to identify the sets of seismic attributes that were coherently
grouped (see Table 1).
4.4 Semi-automatic classification
The classification algorithm was written to identify the range of the
seismic attribute values in respect to the ‘ground truth’ from
Antarctic sea bottom, assigning in this way a granulometric
meaning for the classified seismic section. The granulometric
meaning for the seismic section classified through the algorithm
can never be applied without field samples; otherwise, the algo-
rithm will be only performing a similarity analysis between trace
samples.
The algorithm works in a sequence of steps: (i) collecting the
range of values from the seismic attribute traces at the correspond-
ing location of the core samples; (ii) performing a comparison
between the grouped seismic attribute sections (e.g. the amplitude
and the envelope attribute sections); (iii) searching for positions
of trace samples over each seismic trace, throughout the seismic
section, where all seismic attributes grouped statistically present
their values within the range of values identified by the algorithm
on the first step; (iv) assigning a different value, but the same, for
all trace samples that respected this condition, the classification al-
gorithm turned into a tool capable of identifying and separating
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sediments from the seismic section that, supposedly, have similar
geophysical behaviour as those of the core samples.
5 Results and discussion
5.1 Core sedimentology
Considering the whole dataset available (Fig. 1), only seven seismic
lines have been tied through gravity cores. The sedimentology of
the cores has been analysed according to the description method
of [31] and to the modified classification methods of [32, 33].
The sedimentology of the samples has been analysed by using a
granulometric statistical software, the GRADISTAT 2007 [34],
which calculates the following samples statistics: mean, mode(s),
sorting (standard deviation), skewness, kurtosis and a range of cu-
mulative percentile values (the grain size at which a specified per-
centage of the grains are coarser) [34].
The core analysis has shown that the sediments are fairly homo-
geneous throughout the core samples, varying from silts to silty
sands. Most of the core samples present over 65% of silt on
every centimetre analysed, except the core AM2 drilled in the
Maxwell Bay, showing ∼40% of silty content (Figs. 17–21).
The sediment core samples AM1, AM2 and AM4 show high per-
centages of coarse-grained sizes, probably because of the proximity
to the shore and to the sediment transport enacted by the iceberg
melting during the spring and the summer. On the other hand, the
samples AM14 and AM17 show a small amount of sands when
compared with the cores AM1, AM2 and AM4. In overall, fine-
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Fig. 19 AM4 sediment core granulometric analyses
grained sized clastic grains tend to cover a great part of the contin-
ental shelf, being the dominant sediments on the sea bottom surface.
5.2 Core petrophysical properties and stratigraphic correlations
There is a great discrepancy between the recorded seismic lines and
the core samples scale, where the total penetration for the seismic
data was about 200 m depth, depending on sediment conditions,
and the drilled samples on the Antarctic sea bottom reached a
maximum of 3.22 m of recovered sediment column. It was not pos-
sible, therefore, to tie the sediments with the seismic section for
stratigraphic correlation purposes. Here, we present the correlation
between the reflection coefficients obtained with the petrophysical
data recorded through the MSCL and a fraction (starting from the
‘first-break’ to few milliseconds, associated with the core sample
depth) of the seismic trace corresponded to the location of the
core samples, considered here only as representatives of the seabot-
tom sediment.
In Fig. 22, it is possible to note that there is a harmony between
the seismic trace and the series of reflection coefficients. This shows
that the behaviour of the seismic reflection signal is deeply gov-
erned by the contrast of acoustic impedance between the sediment
layers [5, 25, 31]. As shown in Fig. 22, there was a high correlation
between AM17 and the corresponding seismic trace from line
George_4; this could also be noted on the correlations between
AM2 and AM4 and their related seismic traces, not presented
here. On the other way, for AM1 and AM14, the influence of
random noise cloaked the signal related to the first-break, making
recognition of the true reflection very difficult.
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5.3 Seismic attributes
The seismic dataset proved to be fairly successful with respect to the
signal-to-noise ratio, presenting coherent noises throughout all the
recorded seismic lines, such as multiples and refractions hyper-
bolas. In consequence, no bandpass filtering has been applied.
An example of seismic section, where amplitude and instantan-
eous phase attributes are plotted on the same image for comparison
purposes, is shown in Fig. 3. Each seismic attribute presents its cor-
responding scale bar. This scale offset disallowed for the direct
forward statistical analyses [7, 35], being necessary to use one
new MATLab function to solve this problem. Therefore a
MATLab (.m file) has been written in order to standardise all the
seismic attributes, considering each attribute as a mean and standard
deviation [27, 28]. This method allowed for the standardisation of
all the scales allowing for the comparison process of the seismic
attributes.
The Euclidean distances should only be used for variables on the
same scales [28]. This principle has been followed through the
standardisation process, previously explained [28]. On the other
hand, the same process was not applied making use of the
‘1-Pearson r’ dendrogram clustering analysis, because this statistic-
al process automatically disregards these differences in scales. The
PCAs are statistical methods that investigate the total variance
within each variable and calculate their significance variation
explained by principal factors [28, 30]. The maximum-likelihood
factor PCA is an analogue to principal factors. It incorporates the
matrices of errors during calculations to obtain a final PCA
model, explaining most of the variance found on the data in a
maximum-likelihood sense. The choice to use one or another
seismic attribute category for statistical and classification methods
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Fig. 20 AM14 sediment core granulometric analyses

Fig. 21 AM17 sediment core granulometric analyses

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Fig. 22 Comparison between the corresponded seismic trace and reflection coefficient series for AM17
depends on the researcher interest and approach to deal with the
problem one is facing.
Four groups of seismic attributes were coherently formed based
on statistical analyses, meaning that they were found in more than
two clustering methods (see Table 1). These four groups are: (i)
‘amp’ and ‘env’; (ii) ‘dtenv’ and ‘acphi’; (iii) ‘dtenv’, ‘dt2env’
and ‘acphi’; and (iv) ‘amp’, ‘phi’ and ‘env’. Regarding this latter
group 4, since ‘phi’ attribute has no theoretical and physical rela-
tionship with amplitude and envelope [15, 18, 26, 27], one can con-
sider that this group is not valid either on a theoretical or a practical
classification basis. Between those statistically coherent groups (1,
2 and 3), the first two present a strong theoretical and physical re-
lationship within each group and were the more frequent groups
of attributes (see Table 1). Those were: (i) the amplitude and the en-
velope, followed by (ii) the time derivative of the envelope and the
acceleration of phase. As previously shown by the characteristics
and use of each attribute of interest, this implies that the acoustic
impedance for group 1 and wave absorption for group 2 [18, 27]
are the parts of the acquisition process that most influence the
acoustic seismic method.
The statistical analyses did not present differences between the
seismic traces from several seismic lines, providing further evi-
dence that the groups of attributes formed by the cluster analyses
are truly consistent and that the sediments occurring at the sea
bottom in the study area do not differ greatly. There is a great pos-
sibility that the attributes groups formed here are exclusive for the
sediment conditions (coarse-to-medium-grained silt) found either
on Antarctic sea bottom surface or on continental shelf/slope else-
where on the globe. These attributes associations have a close
J Eng 2015 This is an open access article published by the IET under the Creative Commons
doi: 10.1049/joe.2014.0133
relationship with the geological medium that its acoustic signal pro-
pagated through for this specific case. Alterations on sediment con-
ditions invariably will generate different attributes associations.
The consequent step in this semi-automatic sediment classifica-
tion process was to separate the range of values from the amplitude,
the envelope, the time derivative of the envelope and the acceler-
ation of phase attributes that corresponded to the exact location of
each core sample in every seismic line. Then, the classification al-
gorithm was used to identify on the rest of the seismic section where
those ranges of values were found at the same position, respecting
the statistically classified attribute groups (Fig. 23). The colour bar
scale is altered to better differentiate between normal high ampli-
tude reflectors (light green colour left side panel – all kinds of sedi-
ments) and silt to silty sand (red colour right side panel – classified
sediment) identified by the core samples (Fig. 23). At last, with the
seismic sections properly identified it was reasonable to suppose
(classify) that on those regions identified, there are the same
kinds of sediments found at the reference core location.
6 Conclusions
Investigation in bibliography was not capable of identifying previ-
ous studies in the marine geophysical record that proposed the use
of 2D high-resolution single-channel seismic data, acquired in
shallow waters on the Antarctic Continental Shelf and core
samples to identify classification groups of seismic attributes and
to build an algorithm that would allow one to classify sediment
semi-automatically.
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13
Fig. 23 Amplitude attribute seismic sections Line Max_9: up image – raw amplitude attribute; and below image – semi-automatic classified sediment seismic
sections and position of sediment core AM2 (white arrow)
One computational script was written to extract the seismic attri-
butes from data and in sequence they were processed with statistical
clustering analyses, such as dendrograms, PCAs and k-means clas-
sification, to identify patterns and attributes that behave in the same
manner in response to the interaction with the sediment.
The more frequent and coherent groups of attributes identified
through the statistical analyses were the amplitude and the enve-
lope, followed by the time derivative of the envelope and the accel-
eration of phase, implying that the acoustic impedance and the wave
absorption are the parts of the acquisition process that most influ-
ence the acoustic seismic method.
These attributes associations and the overall statistical analyses
gave us substantial theoretical foundation to proceed with the devel-
opment of this semi-automatic classification method. Therefore it
was possible to build a classification script that could identify on
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14
the seismic sections the associated sets of attributes values in
respect to the calibration of geological core samples, performing
in this manner a semi-automatic sediment classification. It is im-
portant to state here that this study proved to be viable for a glacio-
marine environment and coarse-to-medium silt sediment condi-
tions. This is probably the case for others regions and environments
under the same sediment conditions around the globe because of
seismic response for the same sediment characteristics.
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