PRACTICAL AVO

Part 4 – Effective AVO Crossplot

Modeling & the Hodogram
- A Tutorial

Theory 4-1
 Introduction
In this tutorial, we will present a straightforward methodology for
incorporating AVO crossplotting into AVO modeling.
modeling

This will provide us with a link between our discussion of fluid

substitution with the Biot-Gassmann equations,
equations and the crossplotting
of AVO attributes from real data.

We will also discuss the effect of the wavelet on the crossplot, creating
what other authors have termed the AVO hodogram.
hodogram

This article appeared in the May - June 2000 issue of Geophysics.

Theory 4-2
 The Proposed Modeling Flow
The modeling flow that will be used in this tutorial involves the following
five steps:

(1) Edit and prepare the well logs for AVO modeling.
modeling
(2) Generate an in-situ and a fluid replacement set of logs.
(3) Generate an in-situ and a fluid replacement AVO model.
model
(4) Generate the appropriate AVO attributes for both models
(e.g. Intercept and Gradient)
Gradient
(5) Crossplot the attributes from each model simultaneously.

Theory 4-3
 Gulf of Mexico Example

(a) (b)
Figure (a) shows a relative
amplitude seismic line over
a Gulf of Mexico gas sand
bright spot, (b) shows a
crossplot of the A and B
attributes from the line, and
(c ) shows the position on
the line of the ellipses from (c)
(b), where gray = wet trend,
yellow and blue = gas
sand. Theory 4-4
 Well Logs
Wireline well log suite for the AVO
modeling example, where the
reservoir is annotated in yellow.

The original shear wave log was

created used multiple regression on
the gamma-ray, SP and neutron
porosity logs. Fluid replacement was
done assuming a 40% water
saturation in place of the original
100%.

Theory 4-5
 1000 ft 20000 ft
Models
The forward models from
the wet and gas sand fluid
substitution cases, using
a full elastic wave-
equation algorithm. The
wiggle traces overlay the
color amplitude envelope.

Theory 4-6

Wet Sand Gas Sand

 AVO Responses from Model Example

AVO computations from the gas

sand model of the previous
slide, where the slide on the left
shows an intercept x gradient
product (A*B) and the slide on
the right shows a weighted sum
of the intercept and gradient. In
the case, the weights are  = 0.5
and  = 0.31

Theory 4-7
(a) A*B plot (b) A+B plot
 Crossplot of Model Example
(a) Simultaneous crossplot of the two
models, in-situ = green points, and gas =
purple points. The gray ellipse is the wet
trend and the yellow / blue the gas.

(b) Trace display of the

models, with crossplot
colors superimposed.
In-situ case on left and gas
case on right. Theory 4-8
 Fluid Vector Movement
Fluid vector movement
from the shale (top) to the
wet sand (middle) to the
gas-charged sand (bottom
left). The colors now
represent depth. These
point come from the trough
that occurs in the shale
over-sand interface, seen
on the previous slide.

Theory 4-9
 Thickness and Bandwidth Effects
The crossplots in the next four slides represent the effects of thickness
variations in the cleaner sand members of the modeled reservoir.

The first three slides show the unaltered case, a 50% reduction, and a
75% reduction, respectively.

The fourth slide shows a comparison of the three cases, zoomed over
the anomalous trough.

Note the loss of definition as the sands are reduced in thickness.

Finally, the fifth slide shows the effect of seismic bandwidth change on
the intercept and gradient. As the frequency is lowered, there is loss of
definition.

Theory 4-10
 Effect of Sand Thickness

(a) Full crossplot (b) Zoom of crossplot of the

through trough in the unaltered
unaltered sand. sand. Theory 4-11
(a) Full crossplot through (b) Zoom of crossplot over
sand that has been thinned trough in sand that has been
by 50%. thinned by 50%.
Theory 4-12
(a) Full crossplot through (b) Zoom of crossplot over
sand that has been thinned trough in sand that has been
by 75%. thinned by 75%.
Theory 4-13
(a) Zoom of crossplot
of the trough in the
unaltered sand.
(b) Zoom of crossplot
over trough in sand
that has been thinned (c) Zoom of crossplot
by 50%. over trough in sand
that has been thinned
by 75%. Theory 4-14
 Seismic Bandwidth Change

(a) Unfiltered (4/8-24/48 Hz) (b) Filtered (4/8-20/24 Hz)

crossplot over over unaltered crossplot over over unaltered
sand. sand. Theory 4-15
 Polarization and the AVO Hodogram

In this section, we have looked at AVO cross-plotting methodologies.

It was mentioned that the latest work on cross-plotting consists of the

AVO hodogram (Keho et al: The AVO hodogram: Using polarization to identify
anomalies, TLE, November, 2001 and Mahob and Castagna: AVO hodograms
and polarization attributes, TLE, January, 2002).

This method gives us a new technique in identifying AVO anomalies.

In this appendix, we will look briefly at the theory of the hodogram, and
also look at several examples.

Theory 4-16
 Gas Sand Example

Time Window

Top Gas Sand

Base Gas Sand

We will first illustrate the hodogram using the gas sand anomaly
Theory 4-17
above. This is an (A+B)/2, or pseudo-Poisson’s ratio plot.
The A-B crossplot

Here is the A-B

crossplot of the points
from trace 330 over the
time window shown on
the previous plot.
There is no obvious
anomaly.

Theory 4-18
 The hodogram

time

Here is the hodogram, showing time as a third axis. Notice the extra
information in the hodogram, and the clear anomaly at 630 ms. Theory 4-19
 Polarization Analysis
Rather than display the A and B attributes as a hodogram, we
can compute the polarization angle from a running time window
centered at time t on the attributes, as shown here:

A B

time = t Window
length = M
points
= 2N + 1

Theory 4-20
When we do this polarization
analysis on trace 330, using a
window length of 3 samples, the
result is as seen to the left. Note
the clear indication of an anomaly
between 628 and 638 ms, at the
known gas sand zone.

Now, let us look at some theory.

Theory 4-21
 Polarization Theory
B
As shown on the right, we want to
find the average polarization
angle
 for N points (in this case, N =
3) on an A-B crossplot.
We let X be the matrix that contains
the N values of A in the first column A
and the N values of B in the second 
column.
Then:
  tan 1 ( v 2 / v1 ),
where : v is the principal eigenvecto r of covariance matrix C, and :
 A1 B1   N N

B2    
2
 AN   A2  A Ai Bi 
 A1 A2 i
CX X T
N i 1 i 1

B1 B2  BN      N
2 
   Ai Bi  B i

 AN BN   i 1 i 1 Theory 4-22
 Polarization Angle Summary

The sign of the polarization angle, , is defined as positive upwards

from the horizontal (A) axis. The result is highly dependent on the
length of the running window.

Often, the polarization angle difference  is computed by

subtracting a background angle trend or:

    trend

Theory 4-23
 Other Polarization Attributes
Three other attributes are of interest. The first is polarization
magnitude, which is defined as the RMS length of the cloud of points on
the A-B crossplot, or:

1 N 2 1 N 2
M 
N i 1
Ai   Bi
N i 1

The second is the correlation coefficient squared, or:

2
 N 
  Ai Bi 
r ( t )  N i 1 N 
 Ai2  Bi2
i 1 i 1

The third is the polarization product, or the product of the magnitude

and the polarization angle difference. Theory 4-24
 A Second Model Example
Next, we will use a more complex model, which was used by
Christopher Ross in his paper “Comparison of popular AVO attributes,
AVO inversion, and calibrated AVO predictions” (TLE, March, 2002).

The model gas sand is shown in the next slide.

The application of polarization analysis is shown in subsequent slides.

Theory 4-25
 Model Gas Sand

Gas Sand

(a) (b)
The plot above show the (a) crossplot zone analysis, and (b) sum of
intercept and gradient (pseudo-Poisson’s ratio) for the gas sand Theory 4-26
anomaly.
 Effect of Changing the Window
Length
The next six slides show the effect of changing the running window
length from 10 ms to almost 200 ms on the polarization angle
difference.

In all cases, the removed trend was equal to 0, meaning that these
plots are also equal to the polarization angle itself.

Notice that if the length of the window gets too large, the anomaly
appears to move due to edge effects.

Theory 4-27
 Model Gas Sand Polarization

Theory 4-28
Polarization difference with window = 10
Polarization difference with window = 18 Theory 4-29

ms.
Polarization difference with window = 30 Theory 4-30

ms.
Polarization difference with window = 62 Theory 4-31

ms.
Polarization difference with window = 102 Theory 4-32

ms.
Polarization difference with window = 182 Theory 4-33

ms.
 Polarization Product
The next two slides show the polarization product for the gas sand
example.

Recall that this is the product of the polarization angle difference and the
polarization magnitude.

Again, the trend angle is equal to 0.

Note that the result is slightly clearer than for the angle plots, but the
anomaly was visible on either display. This is because the data is noise
free.

Theory 4-34
 Model Gas Sand Polarization Product

Theory 4-35
Polarization product with window = 10
 Theory 4-36
Polarization product with window = 18
 Colony Sand Example
Next, we will use a real data example.

This is a 2D line over a shallow gas sand in Alberta (the Colony sand).

The anomaly is a class 3 gas sand.

The sonic log from the discovery well is overlain at CDP 330.

The gas sand is at a time of 620 ms.

The next few slides show the result of polarization analysis.

Theory 4-37
 Theory 4-38
Polarization angle with window = 10
 Theory 4-39
Polarization product with window = 10
 Theory 4-40
Polarization angle with window = 18
 Theory 4-41
Polarization product with window = 18
 Conclusions
This tutorial gave an overview of effective crossplot modeling and the
AVO hodogram.
hodogram

Modelling is first done using Biot-Gassmann fluid substitution, to create

both the wet and gas cases for a particular sand.

Synthetic AVO models are then created for these two cases.

The intercept and gradient of the model results are then cross-plotted, to
provide a template for the real data analysis.

This tutorial also looked at the effect of layer thickness and wavelet
bandwidth on the model crossplot results.

We then looked at the hodogram method of displaying AVO anomalies

from A-B crossplots, both mathematically and using data examples.
Other examples of this method are found in the paper by Keho et al
(2001). Theory 4-42