Unfaulting and unfolding 3D seismic images

One limitation of automatic interpretation methods such as seismic image flattening is their inability to handle geologic faults. To address this limitation, we propose to combine a method for automatic image unfaulting with seismic image flattening. First, using fault surfaces and fault throw vectors estimated from an image, we interpolate throw vectors to produce a throw vector field, which we use to unfault the image. Then, using seismic image flattening, we unfold the unfaulted image to obtain a new image in which sedimentary layering is horizontal and also aligned across faults. From this flattened unfaulted image, we can automatically extract geologic horizons.