Geophysical Prospecting, 2022 doi: 10.1111/1365-2478.

13213

Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial

intelligence: A comparative evaluation
Vishnu Roy1 , Ankur Gupta1 , Romy Agrawal1 , Nitesh Kumar2 and Amit Saxena1∗
1 Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Jais, Uttar Pradesh, India, and 2 MDNK Oil and Gas Consultants, Mumbai, Maharashtra,
India

Received May 2021, revision accepted April 2022

ABSTRACT
In oil and gas exploration, it is vital to acquire information about the bottom hole
conditions. This is done in the field using wireline logging. The sonic log is one of the
most prolific logs as it assists in porosity determination, cement evaluation and iden-
tification of lithology and gas-bearing intervals. However, sonic logging tools are not
always a part of the wireline logging arrangement. Still, there are sections where the
logging data are missing, and in some cases, these are dependent upon old tools. The
tool is incapable of recording shear wave transit times. This study explores the pos-
sibility of substituting the sonic log using machine learning and artificial intelligence
techniques. These techniques can also predict the sonic log data in sections where
these are missing or unreliable. Artificial neural networks, decision tree regression,
random forest regression, support vector regression and extreme gradient boosting
are the most popular tools available at our disposal for making these estimations.
This study has compared these different techniques for their effectiveness and accu-
racy in making sonic transit time predictions based on other available well logs. The
obtained results suggest that despite all the attention on artificial neural networks,
eXtreme gradient boosting and the random forest regression outperform it for the
given purpose. In the case of missing shear transit time data, random forest regression
made predictions with a root mean squared error of 1.03 × 10–4 and a root mean
squared error of 0.97 while eXtreme gradient boosting regression did so with a root
mean squared error of 1.36 × 10–4 and the same regression coefficient (0.97). When
no sonic data were available, random forest regression estimated shear transit time
with a root mean squared error of 6.41×10–4 and a regression coefficient of 0.95, and
compressional transit time with a root mean squared error of 9.06×10–5 and a root
mean squared error of 0.94. The root mean squared error of shear transit time and
compressional transit time predictions made using eXtreme gradient boosting were
found to be the same as those of random forest regression. The root mean squared
error, however, was observed to be slightly less for the compressional transit time pre-
dictions and somewhat more for the shear transit time predictions. As data analysis,
in general, is a better method for estimation than the use of empirical correlations,

∗ Email: asaxena@rgipt.ac.in

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers. 1

2 V. Roy et al.

these machine learning-based predictions can serve as powerful tools in the oil and
gas exploration industry.

Key words: Artificial intelligence, Compressional wave, Neural networks, Shear

wave, Sonic log.

monopole logging tools, i.e. they do not give any information

I N T RO D U C T I O N about the shear wave transit times in ‘fast’ formations (Harri-
son et al., 1990). Fast formations are those in which the shear
The knowledge of geo-mechanical and petrophysical prop-
response comes back before the compressional wave response.
erties of the subsurface is essential for hydrocarbon ex-
For measuring the shear transit times and the compressional
ploitation. Petrophysical properties enable us to determine
wave transit times, dipole and multipole sonic logging tools
the economic viability of exploitation. Simultaneously, geo-
are available to use flexural waves (Alford et al., 2012).
mechanical properties help improve the efficacy of the drilling
Despite the sonic log utilities, it is not a preferred part
operation and reduce the associated risks. Technical strategies
of the wireline logging arrangement (Elkatatny et al., 2018).
and financial evaluations rely predominantly on the accuracy
Even when the tool cannot measure compressional and shear
of the acquired information about the reservoir.
wave transit times, inaccurate measurements might be ob-
The traditional method of analysing the rock properties is
tained due to the faulty tool, poor data storage, bad hole con-
through laboratory analysis of the cores. This helps to estimate
ditions etc. In such cases, artificial intelligence (AI) provides a
the reservoir rock properties at bottom hole conditions. How-
powerful solution to estimate the sonic log data based on the
ever, there are two significant drawbacks to this technique.
other available logs (Haghighi et al., 2014; Anemangely et al.,
The first is the procurement of core and extensive lab analysis.
2017; Anemangely et al., 2019; Mehrad et al., 2022).
Second, the core represents a smaller section of the reservoir,
This paper aims to identify different AI techniques and
and they are incapable of providing a holistic framework of
evaluate their performance in predicting the sonic transit times
reservoir properties for heterogeneous formations. For miti-
using the other available log data as input parameters. The
gating these disadvantages, the petroleum industry resorts to
proposed work intends to observe each method’s performance
wireline logging operations.
in this task and compare them for an optimized result. Two
Sonic logs have proven to be reliable in gathering in-
cases are being considered for the study. In the first one, a pri-
formation about the subsurface formations. They are instru-
mary wave transit time is available, and the secondary wave
mental in determining the porosity, lithology, fluid saturation
transit time can be determined. In the second case, no sonic
and mechanical properties of the formation rock (Khazane-
data are available. It will be determined using the other avail-
hdari & McCann, 2005; Asoodeh, 2013; Shahvar et al., 2014).
able logs: gamma-ray log, spectral gamma-ray logs, resistivity
When used in conjunction with seismic logs, sonic logs can
logs, neutron porosity and density log.
estimate the pore pressure. These logs indicate the formation
properties due to the sonic transit times affected by reservoir
properties like compaction, density, anisotropy, porosity, con-
S U P E RV I S E D L E A R N I N G R E G R E S S I O N
solidation, cementation, pore pressure and overburden stress
TECHNIQUES
(Krief et al., 1990; Williams, 1990). Initially, the sonic log-
ging tools used in the industry had a single transmitter and Supervised learning algorithms build a model of the relation-
receiver pair. From there, they have evolved today into varied ships between the input and output parameters based on the
combinations. Generally, dual receiver systems compensate input data (Srivastava et al., 2014). The model is trained with
for the borehole and drilling mud (Doh & Alger, 1958). Hence, the available data and can then predict the output from a
borehole-compensated sonic tools are used to deal with the ir- new set of inputs (Nair & Hinton, 2010). Supervised learn-
regularities in the borehole size. ing regression techniques in today’s world have ubiquitous
Further, array sonic logging tools containing an array applications. The present work has extensive data with an ex-
of transmitters and receivers provide improved measure- tremely high number of observations compared with the num-
ment quality (Hsu et al., 1987). The above tools are usually ber of features in each observation. Hence, the low bias/high

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18

 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 3
variance algorithms have been used in the present work
(Kingma & Ba, 2014).
Artificial neural network
An artificial neural network (ANN) is inspired by the data
processing techniques of the human brain. Just like the human
brain, an ANN comprises of interconnected nodes of neurons
(Bishop, 1995). The brain has billions of neurons that process
information flow to and fro from (output) the brain to per-
form the desired task. Similarly, an ANN has artificial neurons
known as processing units interconnected by nodes (Gevrey
et al., 2003).
It is a beautiful technique to understand and establish the
relationships between complex non-linear parameters when
the system structure is unknown. In a way, ANN mimics the
behavioural patterns of the system, and it grows and learns
about the system’s functioning even when no mathematical
relationship is known to exist. An ANN, just like the human
brain, can learn from past scenarios and experiences, i.e. data.
Its functionality can be represented using Figure 1.
ANN structure consists of several connected layers of
neurons. There is an input layer, an output layer and one
or more hidden layers. Each connection possesses a cer-
tain weight which might be positive or negative. A positive
weight activates the neuron, whereas a negative one inhibits it.
The neural network’s performance depends on the structure’s
weights, biases and the number of neurons in the hidden lay-
ers. Fewer neurons result in underfitting, whereas an exceed-
ingly high number of neurons results in overfitting. Hence, an
optimized number is always desirable (Hinton et al., 2006).
A suitable way to deal with overfitting is the use of dropout.
Dropout is a regularization method in which some nodes are
ignored randomly. In effect, it makes the layer look like it has
a different number of nodes and connections to the previous
layer than it actually does. The training process becomes nois-
ier, which compels the system to develop a more probabilis-
tic learning pattern. Thus, overfitting is reduced (Singh et al.,
2016).
An activation function is used to determine whether a
neuron should be activated or not, and it introduces non-
linearity into the output. The function used in this study was
RELU, which stands for rectified linear unit. It gives an out-
come 0 if x is negative and x if x is positive (Choudhary &
Gianey, 2017).
A (x) = max (0, x) . (1)
© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18
RELU is computationally cost-effective compared with
other functions like sigmoid and tanh due to its simple math-
ematical operation.
The adjustments in a neural network’s attributes, such as
weights and biases, control the learning process. The objec-
tive of these adjustments is to minimize the cost function. The
use of optimizers achieves this. As shown in Figure 2, opti-
mizers use gradient descent to find the coefficients that mini-
mize some cost functions (e.g. root mean square error, sum of
squared residuals etc.) (Maleki et al., 2014). A downhill path
is followed until the global minimum of the cost function is
reached. In simple mathematical terms, this is the point where
dJ(w)
dw
= 0.
For our model, the optimizer ADAM has been used.
ADAM is an abbreviation for adaptive momentum estimation
and uses running averages of both the gradients and their sec-
ond moments (Pedregosa et al., 2011).
Decision tree model
The decision tree (DT) model resembles the structure of a tree.
The input dataset is split into subsets, and an associated DT is
constructed. The DT is made of decision nodes and leaf nodes.
It is one of the most practical approaches in machine learn-
ing used for classification and regression applications (Xu
et al., 2005). This model’s flexibility makes it a suitable can-
didate when the relationship between inputs and outputs is
complex.
The model classifies the data based on a set of rules
using concepts like entropy and Gini index. Both are mea-
sures of node impurities. Entropy in this context, like
in thermodynamics, is a measure of disorder. Mathemati-
cally, these can be represented as in equations (2) to (4)
(Hartshorn, 2016):

m
 
Entropy = pn log(pn ) (2)
n=1

m
Gini index = 1 − p2n (3)
n = 1
   
Information gain = Entropy dataset − Entropy feature .(4)
Information gain is the criterion used by the DT algo-
rithm to split nodes. Before and after a transformation, the
dataset’s entropy is compared to calculate the information
gain (Mitchell, 1997).
4 V. Roy et al.

Figure 1 (a) General structure of ANN; (b) effect of dropout on ANN.

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18

 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 5
Figure 2 Gradient descent used in optimizers.
Support vector machine
Support vector machine (SVM) is a type of supervised learning
technique mainly used for pattern recognition and regression.
It attempts to separate or classify data using hyperplanes. A
hyperplane is a subspace whose dimension is one less than that
of the space it lies, and this means that a three-dimensional
space will have a two-dimensional hyperplane. Once the hy-
perplanes have been established, points are classified depend-
ing on whether they lie on the hyperplane’s positive or negative
side. SVM helps capture non-linear functions based on statis-
tical learning theory, a framework for machine learning when
prediction is the ultimate objective (Segal, 2004).
In SVM, when the system cannot find a hyperplane in
the given dimensions, it uses kernel functions to increase its
dimensions. A kernel function makes this transition possi-
ble without increasing the computational cost. The kernel
Figure 3 (a) Decision boundaries associated with hyperplanes. (b) Kernal function transforming a 2D space into a 3D space.
© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18
function used in this study is the radial basis function (RBF)
kernel. It is the default kernel in SVM and computes how close
it is for any 2 points X1 and X2 . If we denote the variance by σ ,
the RBF function can be mathematically represented by equa-
tion (5) (Vert et al., 2004)
 
||X1 − X2 ||2
K (X1 , X2 ) = exp − . (5)
2σ 2
To classify points as positive or negative, SVM uses deci-
sion boundaries which act as lines of demarcation. Points on
the decision line may be classified as positive or negative. The
theory is represented in Figure 3.
If, for instance, the equation of a hyperplane is y = ax +
b, the equations of the associated decision boundaries will be
−a < y − (ax + b) < a.
Support vector regression penalizes the predictions that
are outside the decision boundaries. The points closest to the
hyperplane on either side determine the support vectors (Pe-
dregosa et al., 2011). The solver algorithms of support vec-
tor regression make iterative predictions until at least one
feasibility gap, gradient difference or largest Karush–Kuhn–
Tucker violation is lower than their respective tolerance val-
ues (Huang et al., 2006). The above criteria help in optimizing
the iteration of variables and the Lagrange multiplier.
Random forest method
Random forest (RF) is an ensemble learning bagging tech-
nique. Ensemble learning offers the liberty of not relying on
only one learning model. It provides a structured solution to
combine different learners who may or may not be from the
6 V. Roy et al.
same learning algorithm. Bagging is a technique in which sev-
eral learning algorithms are built, and then means are taken
to find bagging probabilities (Dietterich, 2002).
The RF technique uses the aggregation of many DTs, re-
sulting in a reduced variance compared with the DT model.
It focuses on both observations and variables and creates in-
dividual DTs. The total average is then taken when solving
regression problems (Ben-Hur et al., 2001).
eXtreme gradient boosting
eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), like the RF technique,
is an ensemble learning algorithm based on a DT and uses
a gradient boosting framework. Chen et al. introduced this
scalable end-to-end tree boosting system in 2015. It stands for
extreme gradient boosting and is known for scalability and
fast execution. This method provides features like paralleliza-
tion, distributed computing and cache optimization (Chen
et al., 2015). It is among the most versatile and futuristic
techniques in the arena of machine learning. Unlike RF, a
bagging technique, XGBoost uses smaller trees that are not
as deep.
PREDICTION OF SONIC TRANSIT TIME OR
VELOCITY
From the estimation of bubble point right down to the calcu-
lation of the rate of penetration, machine learning has clearly
found various use-cases in research related to the field of oil
and gas exploration (Anemangely et al., 2018; Ashrafi et al.,
2019; Sabah et al., 2019; Anemangely et al., 2019; Mehrad
et al., 2020; Ghorbani et al., 2020; Mohamadian et al., 2021;
Rashidi et al., 2021; Sabah et al., 2021; Dhar et al., 2021;
Gupta et al., 2021; Abad et al., 2022; Matinkia et al., 2022;
Agrawal et al., 2022).
There have been numerous attempts to develop empiri-
cal correlations to predict the shear wave velocity from the
compressional wave velocity in conjunction with other logs.
Castagna et al. (1985) used four different correlations for four
formations to predict the S wave velocity using the P wave ve-
locity (Castagna et al., 1985). Eskandari et al. (2004) formed
an artificial intelligence (AI)-based model of regression from
geophysical well log data. They used P wave velocity, neutron
porosity and bulk density as predictors for the S wave velocity
(Eskandari et al., 2004). Augusto et al. presented a correlation
to determine the P wave velocity using well log data. They used
a non-linear regression technique to develop the correlation.
Their model used effective porosity, gamma-ray, shaliness and
© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18
electrical resistivity as input parameters. In their study, they
created 28 empirical correlations (Augusto & Martins, 2009).
For a rock having a Poisson’s ratio in the range of 0.15
to 0.35 and a P wave velocity between 2000 and 6000 ft/s,
Carrol provided an equation to determine the S wave velocity.
The equation held up 30% to 60% for the porosity range and
the density range of 1.6 g/cc to 2.7 g/cc (Carroll, 1969).
The advent of AIattempts has been made to determine
the S wave velocity using the P wave velocity and other logs.
A backpropagation neural network and support vector regres-
sion was used by Maleki et al. They reduced log inputs. Only
gamma-ray, compressional wave velocity and neutron poros-
ity were used (Maleki et al., 2014).
Predicting S wave velocity using P wave velocity is more
accurate than using porosity logs (Tabari et al.). They pre-
dicted P wave velocity from the S wave velocity using neural
network models (Tabari et al., 2011).
A pseudo P wave velocity can also be determined by
stacked seismic traces (Lindseth, 1979). Silva et al. (2001) then
stated that accurate results could be obtained using artificial
neural network (ANN) to predict the sonic log from stacked
seismic traces.
Some studies independently used ANN to estimate sonic
logs from other well logs (Onalo et al., 2018; Elkatatny et al.,
2018). Elkatatny et al. estimated sonic log data using other
well logs/ drilling parameters as input parameters (Tariq et al.,
2016; Muqtadir et al., 2019; Gowida & Elkatatny, 2020). An
attempt to make similar predictions using multi-well data was
made using the eXtreme gradient boosting model for the pur-
pose (Liu et al., 2021). Regression techniques were also used
for the task by other authors (Joshi et al., 2021; Gamal et al.,
2021).
It is evident from the literature that efforts have been fo-
cused on predicting the shear wave velocity using the compres-
sional wave velocity. Previous studies have predicted the sonic
logs using other well logs with limited input parameters. The
use of limited parameters simplifies the process but might lead
to sub-optimal accuracy. The paper compares the most popu-
lar AI techniques for their relative applicability in predicting
sonic logs by using other well logs. We have used an extensive
array of well logs to provide the system with the maximum
training data.
DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY
The flow chart for the complete model development process
is given in Figure 4.
 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 7

Figure 4 Workflow for the execution of algorithms.

Data collection, pre-processing and quality check were eliminated from the dataset during data cleaning. Zones
of washouts and keyseating were identified and eliminated us-
The dataset was obtained from an Australian oil field in a
ing the calipre log. Finally, Poisson’s ratio was calculated from
.las file and extracted into an excel spreadsheet. The objective
the sonic log data and checked for a reasonable range. This is
was to predict the sonic transit times at any depth and not
an industry-standard logging quality check. The representa-
just when specific formations were present; the complete log-
tion of the data used is illustrated in Figure 5(a–l).
ging data of the well was used. The dataset contained logging
data of neutron porosity, bulk density, gamma-ray, compres-
Input parameters
sional wave transit time (DTC), shear wave transit time (DTS),
deep resistivity (RESD), medium resistivity (RESM) and shal- All these available logs were used in our study as it is im-
low resistivity (RESS). The sections of data having null sets perative to provide the system with the maximum possible

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8 V. Roy et al.

Figure 5 (a) P wave transit times, (b) S wave transit times, (c) gamma-ray log, (d) neutron porosity log, (e) photoelectric absorption factor, (f)
potassium spectral gamma-ray log, (g) deep resistivity log, (h) medium resistivity log, (i) shallow resistivity log, (j) thorium spectral gamma-ray
log, (k) uranium spectral gamma-ray log and (l) density log.

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18

 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 9

Table 1 ANN model summary

Layer (type) Output shape Input parameters

Dense_2 (None, 128) 1408

Dropout (None, 128) 0
Dense_3 (None, 1) 129

learning regression techniques like the decision tree regres-

Figure 6 Correlation coefficients of DTC and DTS with the other well
logs.
information to learn. This builds a better interpretation of the
dataset. Along with an extensive array of well logs, more than
10,000 data points were used for the study.
Figure 6 shows how the different well logs correlate to
the compressional and shear sonic transit times.
The correlation coefficients of each well log with shear
wave transit time and compressional wave transit time were
calculated. The neutron porosity showed a strong correlation
coefficient (R2 ) of 0.83 with the S wave transit time (DTS) and
0.75 with the P wave transit time (DTC). This strong correla-
tion shows that both the neutron porosity log and the sonic
log are porosity logs. The potassium spectral gamma-ray log
illustrated a moderate positive R2 of 0.67 with DTS and 0.62
with DTC. Other parameters failed to demonstrate good cor-
relations with the sonic transit times but were still relevant.
Development of the machine learning models
As a standard procedure followed in machine learning, the
dataset was fragmented into two parts. Seventy-five per cent
of the data trained the model, and 25% validated it, i.e. 75%
of the data were used to form decision trees, determine weights
and biases etc. The remaining 25%were concealed from the
model and were later used to evaluate the developed model’s
skill for predicting the sonic logs. Thus, in our study, 8172 data
points were used in training and 2724 for validation. Com-
plete data were scaled using min–max scaling, i.e. the highest
value was taken as 1 and the lowest as 0.
X − Xmin
Xscaled = . (6)
Xmax − Xmin
The other points were scaled accordingly to ascertain
the distribution of values in the range of 0 to 1. Supervised
sion, random forest regression, support vector regression and
XGBoost were applied to these data. Also, an effective artifi-
cial neural network was constructed and tested for the same.
The optimizer used with the artificial neural network (ANN)
model was ADAM, which is an adaptive movement estima-
tion technique. A dropout neural network layer minimizes the
chances of overfitting. Table 1 shows the ANN model sum-
mary. The total number of parameters was 1537, and all of
them were trainable.
Although supervised learning regression techniques are
not dependent upon any particular set of equations, the func-
tional equations of ANN for our model are shown by equa-
tions (7) and (8).
⎡ ⎛ ⎞⎤

128
 
Y = max ⎣0, ⎝ hidden j ∗ w1, j + b⎠⎦ , (7)
j=0
  

9
 
hidden j = max 0, xi ∗ wi, j + b j . (8)
i = 0
The proposed work assesses two distinct scenarios. In
the first scenario, the compressional wave transit times are
known but lags the information about the shear wave tran-
sit time. In the second scenario, no sonic log data are avail-
able. The existing well logs have to be used to estimate
the compressional and shear wave transit times. The train-
ing and validation loss curves for DTS prediction by ANN
in case 1 are represented in Figure 8(a). Figure 8(b and
c) illustrates the ANN models to predict DTC and DTS in
case 2.
These training and validation loss curves are indicative
of a model’s tendency for overfitting or underfitting. Overfit-
ting is the ANN equivalent of memorizing. This means that
the model becomes very skilled at predicting the outcome in
the training set but fails to make accurate predictions when
given an input different from the data set. On the other hand,
underfitting refers to the condition in which the input data
are insufficient for making the necessary assessments. The
curves shown in Figure 7(a–c) illustrate the developed model’s

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18

10 V. Roy et al.
Figure 7 (a) Training and validation loss curves for DTS (Case 1), (b) training and validation loss curves for DTS (Case 2), (c) training and
validation loss curves for DTC (Case 2).
effectiveness due to a minimal deviation between the training
and validation losses.
Hyperparameter tuning
The learning process of any machine learning model is gov-
erned by the values of some defined parameters like tree depth
in the decision tree model, number of trees in random forest
model, number of neurons in a layer in ANN etc. Such param-
eters are known as hyperparameters and are chosen wisely.
Assigning values to these hyperparameters is challenging and
vital for the model’s optimum performance (Claesen & De
Moor, 2015).
Hyperparameter tuning or optimization is the process of
identifying a set of values for any algorithm that minimizes the
loss function. An exhaustive grid search helps in the selection
© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18
of hyperparameters. The grid search considers all the com-
binations and returns the best one (Pedregosa et al., 2011).
Table 2 summarizes the hyperparameter tuning done in the
study for the different algorithms.
Metrics used for comparison
Once the different models were constructed and executed, the
coefficient of determination (R2 ) and root mean square error
(RMSE) were used as metrics for comparison.
The coefficient of determination is a popular metric for
assessing the performance of a regression model. It depends
on the sum of squared residuals to the total sum of errors and
can be represented by equation (9).
SSres
R2 = 1 − . (9)
SStotal
 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 11

Table 2 List of hyperparameters tested and the obtained best hyperparameters

Algorithm Parameters Hyperparameters Best Hyperparameters

Artificial neural network activation [’linear’, ’relu’, ’sigmoid’] ‘relu’

init_weights [’uniform’, ’normal’, ’he_uniform’] ‘uniform’
optimizer [’SGD’, ’RMSprop’, ’Adam’] ‘Adam’
dropout_rate [0.0, 0.2, 0.4] 0.2
neurons [32, 64, 128] 128
epochs [300,500] 500
Decision tree regression criterion [‘mse’, ‘mae’] ‘mse’
min_samples_split [2,3,4] 3
max_depth [10, 11, 12] 10
min_samples_leaf [4, 6, 8] 6
max_leaf_nodes [100, 150, 200] 200
Random forest regression bootstrap [True, False] False
max_depth [20,40, 60] 40
max_features [‘auto’, ‘sqrt’] ‘sqrt’
min_samples_leaf [1, 2] 1
min_samples_split [1, 3, 5] 3
n_estimators [200, 300, 400] 400
Support vector regression kernel [‘rbf’, ‘linear’, ‘poly’] ‘rbf’
gamma [‘scale’, ‘auto’] ‘scale’
epsilon [0.2, 0.5,1] 1
C [1, 10, 100] 100
XGBoost regression learning_rate [0.03,0.1] 0.03
max_depth [6,12,18] 18
min_child_weight [1, 3, 5] 3
subsample [0.3, 0.4, 0.7] 0.4
colsample_bytree [0.7,0.8,0.9] 0.9
n_estimators [300, 400, 500] 500
objective [‘reg:squarederror’, ‘reg:squarederror’
‘reg:squaredlogerror’, ‘reg:logistic’]

Greater values of R2 signify a better relationship between
the input parameters and output.
 output in the zones where the measurements are not taken or
 
1 m  2
RMSE =  Xobserved − Xpredicted . (10)
m j=1
RMSE is the average of the squares of all the errors re-
lated to the root of squared error loss. RMSE incorporates
both variance and the estimator’s bias and is always non-
negative. Values as low as possible are desirable.
R E S U LT S A N D D I S C U S S I O N
Case 1. Compressional transit time data available
Shear wave and compressional wave transit times play an es-
sential role in predicting the geo-mechanical properties of for-
mations. However, in many wells, monopole sonic logging
tools are run in. These tools are incapable of measuring the
shear transit times. The possibility of accurately predicting
these data is the driving force for applying machine learning
models. Also, the technique may be used to develop sonic data
are not reliable.
In this case, we consider that the compressional wave
transit time is available, and the shear wave transit time is
vital for the compressional wave velocity. In this case, we used
compressional wave transit time (DTC) along with other logs
as inputs to determine shear wave transit time (DTS).
eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and the random
forest technique emerged as the most suitable methods with
correlation coefficients (R2 ) 0.97 each and root mean square
errors (RMSE) of 1.36 × 10−4 and 1.03 × 10−4 , respec-
tively. They were followed by artificial neural network (ANN),
which had an R2 of 0.96 and an RMSE of 1.75 × 10−4 .
The R2 values of Support Vector Regression (SVR) and de-
cision tree regression were 0.94 and 0.95, respectively. Their
respective root mean squared errors were 8.58 × 10−3 and
3.48 × 10−4 .

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12 V. Roy et al.

Table 3 Correlation coefficients and root mean square errors of all the applied AI techniques for the scaled dataset

Algorithm Coefficient of determination R2 Root mean square error

DTS (Case 1) ANN 0.96 1.75 × 10−4

Decision tree regression 0.95 3.48 × 10−4
Random forest regression 0.97 1.03 × 10−4
Support vector regression 0.94 8.58 × 10−3
XGBoost regression 0.97 1.36 × 10−4
DTC (Case 2) ANN 0.91 2.48 × 10−4
Decision tree regression 0.89 3.33 × 10−4
Random forest regression 0.94 9.06 × 10−5
Support vector regression 0.86 2.14 × 10−3
XGBoost regression 0.94 4.95 × 10−5
DTS (Case 2) ANN 0.93 8.50 × 10−4
Decision tree regression 0.92 6.59 × 10−4
Random forest regression 0.95 6.41 × 10−4
Support vector regression 0.89 3.54 × 10−3
XGBoost regression 0.95 7.99 × 10−4

The coefficients of determination, in this case, were ob-
served to be the highest. This is because available DTC is
strongly related to the shear wave transit time.
Although all the methods show a high enough value of
R2 , Figure 8(a–e) shows that the predictions made by the de-
cision tree model and SVM lie close to the measured values
but are distributed in a broader range.
We should have predictions distributed near the mea-
sured values across a narrower range to reduce the error of
any individual prediction. Thus, it can be said that ANN, ran-
dom forest and XGBoost, for the given dataset, are relatively
more effective techniques. The regression line (red line) signi-
fies a close match between measured DTS and the predicted
data.
Correlation coefficients and root mean squared errors were
determined for each technique and were reported in Table 3.
For this purpose, random forest and XGBoost proved to
be the most effective techniques, with an R2 of 0.94 and RMSE
of 9.06 × 10−5 and 4.95 × 10−5, respectively. The difference
in applicability between random forest, ANN and XGBoost
was not that significant.
However, the regression coefficient confirms that the de-
cision tree model and SVM regression are less effective. In the
case of SVM, there is a significant deviation between the pre-
dicted and measured results. As indicated by the R2 values,
the range of predicted values is the broadest for SVM and de-
cision tree. Subsequently, it is the narrowest for random forest
technique and XGBoost.

Case 2. Sonic logging data not available Prediction of shear wave transit time

Machine learning models offer the possibility of building sonic
log data even when the sonic logging tool has not been run in
or has failed to return reliable data for any reason. The input
logs have been represented in Figure 5. To predict compres-
sional and shear wave transit times (DTC and DTS), all the
logs except these two were taken as input parameters.
Prediction of compressional wave transit time
DTS, in our case, showed a better correlation with the input
data than DTC. Once again, XGBoost and the random for-
est technique emerged to be the most effective methods with
R2 of 0.95 each compared with that of 0.93, 0.92 and 0.89
of ANN, Decision tree regression and SVR. The root mean
squared error of each method has been reported in Table 3.
Also, Figure 10(a–e) represents the distribution of predictions
and confirms the effectiveness of the methods.

Instantly, it can be observed that when no sonic transition time

S U M M A RY A N D C O N C L U S I O N S
data were provided, the measured DTC data and the predicted
data are in confluence with each other. Figure 9(a–e) illus- Five artificial intelligence (AI) models (artificial neural net-
trates the predicted DTC values against the measured values. work, support vector regression, decision tree regression,

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18

 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 13

Figure 8 (a) Training and validation loss curves for DTS (Case 1), (b) training and validation loss curves for DTS (Case 2), (c) training and
validation loss curves for DTC (Case 2).

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14 V. Roy et al.

Figure 9 (a) Performance plot for ANN, (b) performance plot for decision tree regression, (c) performance plot for random forest regression, (d)
performance plot for SVM regression, (e) performance plot for XGBoost.

© 2022 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers., Geophysical Prospecting, 1–18

 Augmenting and eliminating the use of sonic logs using artificial intelligence 15

Figure 10 (a) Performance plot for ANN, (b) performance plot for decision tree regression, (c) performance plot for random forest regression,
(d) performance plot for SVM regression, (e) performance plot for XGBoost.

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16 V. Roy et al.
random forest regression and eXtreme gradient boosting (XG-
Boost)) were developed and used to estimate the sonic log
transit times using other logs. The models were trained and
tested using more than 10,000 data points. The present work
efficiently predicts the sonic log transit time using other logs
using AI. AI provides a cost-effective way to predict sonic tran-
sit times in the absence of measured data. This application
augments the cases of missing or unreliable sonic logging data.
In cases of unavailability of both compressional wave transit
time (DTC) and shear wave transit time (DTS), AI techniques
can still predict them satisfactorily.
XGBoost and the random forest technique resulted in
the most accurate predictions with an R2 of 0.97 (root mean
square errors (RMSE) 1.03 × 10−4 and 1.36 × 10−4 , respec-
tively) each when DTC was available. If both DTC and DTS
need to be predicted, the R2 of both the techniques for DTC
was 0.94 (RMSE 9.06 × 10−5 and 4.95 × 10−5 , respectively)
and for DTS, 0.95 (RMSE 6.41 × 10−4 and 7.99 × 10−4 re-
spectively). The correlation of the combined input data was
higher with DTS than with DTC. XGBoost and the random
forest regression techniques outperform all for sonic log pre-
diction purposes. It is an efficient estimation method com-
pared with empirical correlations.
AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S
We greatly acknowledge the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of
Petroleum Technology for its computational and technical
support. Thanks are extended to all the members associated
with the work.
DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
The data that support the findings of this study are available
on request from the corresponding author. The data are not
publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
ORCID
Amit Saxena https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7958-3576
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