How to perform a geostatistical application

in presence of faults?
The presence of faults introduces a discontinuity in the spatial structure of the variable of
interest. How to consider these faults from the very beginning of the application?
This is done by attaching the faults to the data before any processing, i.e. Exploratory Data Analysis,
Variogram Fitting, Non Stationary Modeling, Interpolation or Conditional Simulation.
Just after loading the data you should define the current fault system and attach it to the data using
the
File / Faults Editor

. By means of the
Application / Load Attached File

menu at the top of the page, you select the data file to load and display it in the graphic.
There are essentially three ways of loading faults:
Importing them using the menu

. This facility is described in the Case Study Oil Shale.

Copying the faults already attached to another file using the menu

Application / Import Faults

Application / Copy Faults from File

.
Digitizing the faults in the graphic page. This can be done by means of the menu of the graphic page.
The last option requires you to be a bit more detailed. To create faults, first click on the right button of
the mouse and select
Create Faults

in the Graphic Modes Menu. By looking at the bottom of the graphic page you can check that you are
now in the graphic mode "Create faults". A fault is a broken line, you create it by digitizing its vertices
with the left button of the mouse. To end the digitization you have to click the right button of the
mouse: the fault is displayed with a name that is by default an integer number starting at 1. When
you digitize the last point of the fault very close to the first point, you will create a polygonal fault
defining a faulted area painted in yellow on the graphic.
Note: To deal with polygonal faults in the kriging step, you may choose from 3 options in the
Neighborhood Definition panel for considering the target points falling within the polygon:
Calculate inside: the data used in the kriging process to estimate a node inside the polygon will belong
to this polygon,
Calculate inside ignoring Polygon: the polygonal fault will be considered as transparent for the
estimation of the nodes inside the polygon,
Do not Calculate inside: no node value will be calculated, it will be put to undefined.
You may digitize several faults. When you have finished you exit from the Create Faults mode using
the menu of the mouse End Current Mode. With the menu of the mouse you now have access to other
Graphic modes:
Edit Faults
Edit Segments
Append Segments
Move Vertices
Add Vertices
Delete Vertices
During the fault manipulations, an Automatic Saving Option in core memory makes it possible to
Restore the previous stage of the fault system. Only the last operation can be "undone".
Once you have selected either a fault or a segment with the mouse, the two Edit modes of the
previous list give access to special menus with the following items:
end Edit Mode
Select (By Name, By Priority, or All)
Deselect All
Priority +1
Priority -1

Delete
Information
Edit Characteristics
Sampling
Each segment of a fault has a priority attribute that is linked to the greater or lesser constraint. The
segment may have different priorities on the variable processing: the higher the priority value, the
weaker the constraint. When creating a fault the priority is set to 1; it is up to the user to change it in
Edit Fault

or
Segment Mode

using Priority +1 or
Edit Characteristics

. In this latter case, switch on the

Unify

button and enter the priority value in the appropriate box.

The
Edit Characteristics

menu also allows the user to define the value of 3 Auxiliary Variables (v1, v2, v3) that could be used
in the Arithmetic Transformations.
The Sampling option allows the user to decrease the number of segments according to a minimum
angle between two consecutive segments. It is an interesting feature when digitized faults are made
up of a lot of segments because the interpolation or simulation processing time is directly dependant
on the number of segments.
Once a system of digitized faults has been entirely defined the user has the possibility of storing them
in an ASCII file using the menu
Application / ASCII Save

.
Now before processing geostatistical tasks two VERY IMPORTANT actions should be carried
out:
1. Set the Maximum Priority value to the appropriate level. The consequence is of crucial importance
because it means that for any other operation only the segments with a value less or equal to this
Priority will be considered as making screens between the data. In the graphic window the segments
with a priority above the Maximum Priority are represented as dotted lines. It should be noted that if a
segment of a polygonal fault is masked off the polygonal property of the fault is no longer valid.
Finally, to change the Maximum Priority value stored in the File, you have to enter it at the bottom of
the Fault Editor window in the box named
Segments are active if Priority less or equal:

.
2. Use
Application / SAVE and RUN

to save the fault system in the current Data File, otherwise the faults defined in core memory will be
lost when you close the window: an error message is nevertheless sent if saving has not been done.
To check whether or not faults have been attached to the Data File, use the
File / Data File Manager