SEISMIC STRATIGRAPHIC EXPLORATION—PART I

Abstract

The basic problem to be solved in stratigraphic exploration always has been the same—how to develop and use practical techniques which have the capability of finding large stratigraphic oil reserves at a profit. If the petroleum industry in the United States is going to discover in domestic areas the huge reserves which are obviously required for the future, seismic stratigraphic exploration will have to be accepted by the industry and play a major role in the discovery. Seismic stratigraphic exploration must, therefore, be described in such a way that management can visualize it as practical and potentially profitable with proven past accomplishments, with important new capability not yet in application, and with significant future potential. Past seismic stratigraphic exploration capabilities, which found large amounts of oil with crude tools from 1938 to 1962, are illustrated with three case histories covering the probable direct detection of a hydrocarbon‐saturated sand, the discovery of saturated lenticular sands over the area of a tilted out ancestral structure, and the delineation of a flank type stratigraphic trap. Three additional case histories will be presented in Part II in the next issue of Geophysics.