Quality Control

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the quality control of completed interpretations as expressed in maps and cross sections. Quality control means locating and correcting errors in the data and in the interpretation. Problems can arise from data transcription errors, incomplete exposure in the field, interpolation uncertainties between wells and seismic profiles, and missing or misleading information in seismic interpretations. The quality-control issues discussed in this chapter can be broadly categorized as data errors and contouring artifacts, inconsistency of trends, bed thickness anomalies, and impossible fault shapes. Additional techniques for detecting and correcting errors involving the restoration and balancing of cross sections are covered in Chap. 11. Those topics are covered separately because they also include related methods for extracting additional geological information from the data and for making model-based predictions of the geometry. The single best quality control for an interpretation is to build an internally consistent, 3-D model of the entire structure. Many of the individual problems noted in the following sections would be obvious in 3-D. The following sections discuss methods that are commonly applied in 2-D, that is, to geological outcrop maps, structure contour maps, and to cross sections.