Speaker Abstracts
February, 2007
Hydrocarbon Identification in Hard Rocks: Challenging Conventional Wisdom about AVO
Matthew McChesney of GeoTrace
Historically the use of Amplitude Variation with Offset (AVO) in the Permian Basin and other hard rock environments has met with questionable success. As a result, the application of AVO in such plays is not generally regarded as a go to tool in the toolbox of seismic technology. However, AVO is an inherent property of the seismic response regardless of geology, and the careful utilization of this embedded information can be a powerful seismic tool in any lithologic setting.
The use of AVO in hard rock plays, including the Permian Basin, has enjoyed limited success in the past, largely as a result of the inherent limitations and pitfalls of AVO as a direct hydrocarbon indicator. Through the understanding and consideration of these inherent limitations of AVO analysis, AVO can function as a valuable tool for the measurement of rock property attributes from seismic data.
The application of the AVO response as a means of measuring and extracting invaluable rock property information gives an abundance of information on lithology, density, fluid content, porosity, etc.. Although AVO as a direct hydrocarbon indicator suffers from limitations the rock properties resulting from the measurement of AVO due not have such an Achilles heel. Thus, through the analysis of these resulting Rock Property Attributes it is possible to predict properties in hard rocks, such as the presence of hydrocarbon, previously considered beyond the realm of seismic data.
About me:
I attended the University of Mississippi where I received a Bachelor’s of Science in Physics and a Bachelor’s of Science in Mathematics upon my completion in May 2005. Following this I began my career in exploration geophysics in Midland, Texas as seismic processor for Pinnacle Seismic, Ltd. There I learned seismic processing on West Texas data, baptism by fire so to speak. In May of 2006, I joined the Reservoir Services group of Geotrace Technologies’ Dallas office. Since joining Geotrace, I have worked in the fields of AVO, Rock Properties, and Pore Pressure.
