Abstract
Methane gas hydrates are formed in the subsurface along shallow ocean basins or in permafrost settings, and are commonly identified in the seismic data by the bottom-simulating reflector (BSR). Various methods have been employed in the past to measure gas hydrates from lab analyses, well log, or velocity data, but few studies have demonstrated methods to identify gas hydrates in seismic data when the BSR is sparse or lacking. One approach is to measure the expected attenuation caused by hydrates in the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ). Statistical attributes that measure the asymmetry of the seismic amplitude spectrum are applied to quantify the attenuation responses throughout the GHSZ. Although the study area does not contain well log data, there are numerous studies that confirm hydrates exist throughout the Pegasus Basin. These attributes, in addition to amplitude-related attributes, demonstrate that frequency-related variations are the major contributors to attenuation response, rather than seismic amplitude or geology effects. The spectral attribute results show that strong positive skewness and kurtosis variations above the high amplitude BSR is likely due to attenuation through an interval of hydrates. Negative skewness and kurtosis may correspond to an interval that does not contain hydrates, therefore suggesting that the GHSZ in the Pegasus Basin consists of discontinuous hydrates, rather than one continuous layer from ocean bottom to BSR.
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The Pegasus Basin APB13 Seismic Survey was provided by the New Zealand Government’s Department of Petroleum & Minerals.
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Acknowledgements
The AASPI (Attribute Assisted Seismic Processing and Interpretation) software used to compute many of the seismic attributes and all the machine learning models for this research was provided by the AASPI consortium at the University of Oklahoma. The Petrel license and software packages used for visualization and computing the sweetness attribute were provided by Schlumberger. The authors thank the AASPI research group at the University of Oklahoma, and Dr. Kurt Marfurt for his technical feedback.
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This research was funded by an American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) grant to Dr. Heather Bedle at the University of Oklahoma School of Geosciences.
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EJ: Wrote the main manuscript text and prepared each of the figures within the text. HB: Provided technical feedback on figures, seismic attributes, geophysical setting and methodology. TH: Provided technical feedback on the software used to compute the seismic attributes and machine learning. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Jackson, E., Bedle, H. & Ha, T. Assessment of spectral attributes in identifying gas hydrates in seismic data from the Pegasus Basin, offshore New Zealand. Mar Geophys Res 44, 21 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-023-09529-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-023-09529-w