A semiautomatic method to tie well logs to seismic data

Abstract

We evaluated a semiautomatic method for well-to-seismic tying to improve correlation results and reproducibility of the procedure. In the manual procedure, the interpreter first creates a synthetic trace from edited well logs, determines the most appropriate bulk time shift and polarity, and then applies a minimum amount of stretching and squeezing to best match the observed data. The last step resembles a visual pattern recognition task, which often requires some experience. We replaced the last step with a constrained dynamic time-warping technique, to help guide the interpreter. The method automatically determined the appropriate amount of local stretching and squeezing to produce the highest correlation between the original data and the created synthetic trace. The constraint ensured that stretching and squeezing were kept within reasonable bounds, as determined by the interpreter. Results compared well with the manual method, leading to ties along the entire trace length in contrast to the shorter analysis window in the conventional method. Yet, we advise against unsupervised applications because the method is intended as a guide instead of a fully automated blind approach.