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London Evening Lecture Review: Infusing Rock Properties into Seismic Inversion

Thu 14 January 2016

Category: Evening Lectures, London, Reviews

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Review by Stephen Pickering, NExT, Schlumberger

The January London Evening Lecture was delivered by Michel Kemper from Ikon Science who presented Infusing Rock Properties into Seismic Inversion.  This presentation was the first of many which Michel will deliver as SEG Honorary Lecturer.

The auditorium at the Geological Society was packed, standing room only! Was this a response to the oil price and the need to network, or genuine interest by the assembled members I thought?

When I first saw the title I admit that I was rather dubious that it might rehash old and established techniques and concepts, however Michel opened his presentation with a musical accompaniment from Mick Jagger:

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need”

and then I knew that this would be something different!

Of course a few days before the lecture on 10th January, we heard of the death of David Bowie another ikon (sic) of popular music.  In particular Bowie pushed boundaries of music.  Bowie once said I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring. 

Well Michel’s lecture and presentation style were certainly not boring, though at various points during the lecture I had the thought I don’t know where he is going from here!

The presentation started in a fairly straight forward fashion with a reprise of Forward and Inverse Modelling, and a historical jaunt through the various inversion methods and rock properties developed by the likes of Aki-Richards, Zoeppritz, Connolly and Whitcombe amongst others.  He stressed the importance of well ties, low frequency models, and the problem of only having a single rock physics model in an earth comprising multiple facies of sandstones, shales and carbonates.  He also demonstrated that without inversion it is very easy to misinterpret the meaning of the seismic trace.

Then he switched tempo and embarked upon an erudite review of simultaneous inversion methods; Deterministic, Bayesian and finally Facies-aware Simultaneous Inversion, based upon a paper he jointly authored in 2014.

Kemper, M.and Gunning,J., 2014. Joint Impedance and Facies Inversion – Seismic inversion redefined, First Break Vol. 32, Sept.    

The paper addresses the issue of the need for multiple rock physics models, and follows in the pioneering footsteps of Aki-Richards, Zoeppritz and others who themselves did not know where their science would ultimately lead, but then that is what the advancement of science is all about.

The presentation graphics and delivery were without criticism, my only negative comment would be that there was too much information to deliver in the time available.  However overall it was a virtuoso tour de force.  If you missed the lecture but have an opportunity to catch a future presentation – I urge you to go.

You certainly will not be bored!

Look out for this evening lecture in Aberdeen on 17 May!