Too many seismic attributes?

Arthur Barnes
Landmark Graphics Corporation, Colorado, USA

Are there too many seismic attributes? Their great number
and variety is almost overwhelming. How can one decide
which ones to use? But it is not as bad as it looks. Throw away
all the unnecessary attributes and what is left over is quite
manageable.
It’s easy to identify unnecessary seismic attributes. Just
review your attributes in the light of these common-sense
principles:
• Seismic attributes should be unique. You only need one
attribute to measure a given seismic property. Discard
duplicate attributes. Where multiple attributes measure the
same property, choose the one that works best. If you can’t
tell which one works best then it doesn’t matter which one
you choose.
• Seismic attributes should have clear and useful meanings.
If you don’t know what an attribute means, don’t use it. If
you know what it means but it isn’t useful, discard it.
Prefer attributes with geological or geophysical meaning;
avoid attributes with purely mathematical meaning.
• Seismic attributes represent subsets of the information in
the seismic data. Quantities that are not subsets of the data
are not attributes and should not be used as attributes.
• Attributes that differ only in resolution are the same
attribute; treat them that way.
• Seismic attributes should not vary greatly in response to
small changes in the data. Avoid overly sensitive attributes.
• Not all seismic attributes are created equal. Avoid poorly
designed attributes.
Unnecessary attributes are thus duplicates, or they are
obscure or unstable or unreliable, or they are not really attrib-
utes at all. Look first for duplicate attributes, the most
numerous kind of unnecessary attribute. Many basic seismic
properties, particularly amplitude, frequency, and disconti-
nuity, are quantified through multiple seismic attributes vari-
ously computed.
Consider the most important seismic property, amplitude.
Figure 1 compares nine common amplitude attribute maps.
These maps are all similar. Crossplots between them reveal
fairly linear or quadratic relationships demonstrating that
they contain nearly the same information (Figure 2). Rarely
are the differences between these attributes important, and
rarely is anything gained by using more than one. Average
reflection strength nearly always suffices.

Figure 1.
Nine maps
of common
amplitude
attributes
computed in
a 100 ms
window (25
samples) at a
constant time.
The maps all
show about the
same picture.

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Too many seismic attributes?
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You may prefer average energy because it exhibits

more contrast than reflection strength. Use it, but
recognize that average energy has exactly the same
information as RMS amplitude and almost the same
as reflection strength. Its greater contrast is due only
to how it presents the information. Perhaps also you
want to use the maximum amplitude attribute
because in your application it has useful meaning,
and the diff e rences between average reflection
strength and maximum amplitude are significant –
if you truly know what they mean.

Take a more involved seismic property, disconti-

nuity. Figure 3 compares four common disconti-
nuity attributes based on correlation, semblance,
covariance, and weighted correlation. Their cross-
plots are given in Figure 4. Despite significant
computational differences and enthusiastic claims to
the contrary, these four discontinuity attributes are
so nearly the same that it doesn’t matter which one
you use.

Many duplicate attributes masquerade as unique

measures. Arc length is one of these. It is driven by
both amplitude and fre q u e n c y, but amplitude
usually dominates to the extent that it resembles
reflection strength (Figure 5). You probably don’t
need it. Actually, you really don’t need it – arc length
is nonsense. Defined as the length along the wiggles
of a seismic trace in amplitude-time space, it has no Figure 2. Crossplots derived from the amplitude maps of Figure 1. The simple linear and quad -
useful meaning because amplitude and time are ratic relations demonstrate that these attributes all contain the same information. The plot of
unrelated. Discard it. maximum peak amplitude versus maximum trough amplitude appears to be an exception, but
the relatively greater scatter is due more to randomness in the attributes than to inherently
different information.
Amplitude variance also masquerades as a unique
measure. Intuitively it should be unique, or at least
much different than amplitude attributes such as
reflection strength. But for zero mean data a stan-
dard variance equals the average energy, which is
the square of the RMS amplitude, which is a close
approximation to reflection strength. As a result,
amplitude variance derived directly from seismic
data resembles most amplitude attributes (refer to
Figures 1 and 2).

An effective amplitude variance attribute can be

defined as the variance of the reflection strength
normalized by the average reflection strength. This
normalized variance is different than amplitude and
noisier than standard variance (Figure 6). Whether it
is also useful must be determined empirically.

Attributes based on principal components often

masquerade as independent measures. While prin-
cipal components are naturally independent,
normalized principal components tend to be well
correlated. Figure 7 shows two seismic discontinuity
attributes, one computed from the normalized first
principal component, PC1, and another computed
from the normalized second principal component,
PC2. These look like mirror images of each other. A
corresponding attribute based on the third principal
Figure 3. Four discontinuity attributes based on correlation, semblance, covariance, and corre -
component, PC3, resembles a fuzzy version of PC1. lation weighted by trace magnitude, computed as maps in a 60 ms window (15 samples) at a
Ratios of principal components, such as the constant time. These attributes are nearly identical.
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Too many seismic attributes?
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Figure 4. Crossplots derived from the discontinuity attribute maps of Figure 3 are fairly linear,
demonstrating that the attributes are, for all practical purposes, equivalent.
Figure 5. Arc length compared with reflection strength, computed as maps in a 100 ms window
(25 samples) at a constant time. The roughly linear crossplot indicates that they have about the
same information.
Figure 6. Standard amplitude variance compared with the variance of the reflection strength
normalized by the average reflection strength, computed as maps in a 100 ms window (25 samples)
at a constant time. Their crossplot is a random scatter, demonstrating that they contain different
information.
Karhunen-Loeve signal complexity (what does that mean?), can
also look like PC1 and PC2. These principal component attrib-
utes all show the same picture. Keep PC1 and discard the others.
Further muddying the waters, some attributes have duplicate
names. Reflection strength, trace envelope, and instantaneous
amplitude are the same attribute. Covariance discontinuity,
eigen-structure discontinuity, and the normalized first principal
component, PC1, are the same attribute, which initially was
called “Amoco C3.” Response attributes are also called wavelet
42 CSEG RECORDER March 2006
attributes. The quadrature trace and the imaginary
trace are the same – but this is a poor example. The
quadrature trace is just a 90° phase rotation and is not
an attribute since it does not subset the information.
Some attributes are more than similar, they are essen-
tially identical. Identical attributes contain exactly the
same information and differ merely in how they
present this information. As already noted, RMS
amplitude and average energy are identical. Other
identical attributes include instantaneous phase and
cosine of the phase, and dip-azimuth (reflection dip
combined with reflection azimuth) and shaded relief.
Choose the one you prefer and discard the other.
Cosine of the phase is not only identical to instanta-
neous phase, it is also nearly identical to a strong auto-
matic gain (Figure 8). In fact, cosine of the phase is the
ultimate automatic gain, completely removing all
amplitude contrasts. Treat it more as a process than as
an attribute.
Though dip-azimuth and shaded relief are identical
attributes, they look quite different (Figure 9). Dip-
azimuth combines reflection dip and re f l e c t i o n
azimuth through a circular two dimensional colorbar
for which azimuth controls the hue and dip controls
the intensity. Shaded relief combines reflection dip
and azimuth to simulate the shading of illuminated
reflections, for which a gray-scale colorbar suffices.
You don’t need both.
Attributes that lack clear and useful meaning might
well be labeled useless. Such attributes are more
common than you would think. Arc length and the
Karhunen-Loeve signal complexity are useless attrib-
utes. Average instantaneous phase is another useless
attribute. The more instantaneous phase is averaged,
the more predictable and the more worthless the result:
z e ro. Average unwrapped instantaneous phase is
s c a rcely better. The “slope of the instantaneous
frequency” may have clear mathematical meaning (or
may not), but its geological meaning is so obscure that
it is useless. Response phase and response frequency
are also useless if you insist that they describe the
seismic source wavelet as advertised. They succeed
only in the absence of noise or reflection interference.
Simply put, they succeed only in the absence of real
data. You can use these attributes empirically, of
course, recognizing what they really re c o rd. Response
phase re c o rds the apparent phase of reflections,
composite or solitary, at envelope peaks, and helps in
tracking events. Response frequency acts like a
nonlinear filter for instantaneous frequency, producing a cleaner
attribute free of spikes and negative values. This has utility, but a
weighted average frequency is better because it offers the same
benefits plus it is smoother and has simpler meaning (Figure 10).
Changing the resolution of an attribute does not change its
nature. An attribute remains inherently the same whether
computed in a short window or in a long window. This is
obvious for attributes like RMS amplitude and energy half-time,
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Too many seismic attributes?
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but it is also true, though not obvious, of instanta-

neous frequency and weighted average frequency.
They are really the same frequency attribute with
different resolution. You might reasonably use both
to investigate targets with different resolution, but
recognize they are the same attribute.

Weighted average frequency can be computed either

in the time domain as weighted average instanta-
neous frequency, or in the frequency domain as
weighted average Fourier spectral frequency. With Figure 7. A comparison of the normalized first principal component, PC1, and the normalized second
a p p ropriate weights, these completely diff e re n t principal component, PC2, computed as maps in a 100 ms window (25 samples) at a constant time.
methods produce exactly the same results. Similarly, These discontinuity attributes resemble mirror-images of each other and their crossplot suggests the
bandwidth can be quantified as a spectral variance linear relationship, PC2 1 – PC1.
either in the time-domain or in the fre q u e n c y
domain. Some multi-dimensional attributes, such as
azimuth, dip, or dip variance (a measure of reflec-
tion parallelism), can also be generated in either
domain. Because these attributes are the same in
either domain, it is pointless to compute them in
both domains. Not all spectral attributes are so flex-
ible. Spectral kurtosis, for example, must be
computed in the frequency domain, but as it has no
inherent geological or geophysical meaning, you
probably don’t need it.

Attributes that are sensitive to small perturbations in

Figure 8. A seismic line processed with (a) cosine of the phase, and with (b) a strong AGC using
the data are unstable. Apparent polarity is an
a 28 ms window (7 samples). They are almost indistinguishable.
example. It is defined as the sign of the seismic data
at envelope peaks scaled by the envelope peak and
held constant in each interval around a peak. This
works fine for clean zero-phase data free of reflection
interference, but it is ambiguous for thin-bed re f l e c-
tions, which have an apparent phase of around 90°.
Figure 11 shows this for simple synthetic data. As
long as the reflections don’t interfere, apparent
polarity is correct, but where they do interfere,
apparent polarity flips randomly from trace to trace.
The same problem occurs on real data. Discard
apparent polarity and use response phase instead.
Attributes that count the integral number of peaks or
troughs in an interval are also unstable, as they are Figure 9. A comparison along a time slice of (a) dip-azimuth and (b) shaded relief. These attrib -
sensitive to small changes in interval definition. The utes look very different and yet present the same information.
details shown by these attributes cannot be trusted;
avoid them.

Beware of differences between programs for gener-

ating seismic attributes. Aside from incorrect algo-
rithms, which especially plague instantaneous
f re q u e n c y, the same attribute produced by
competing programs can differ substantially due to
implementation details. One such detail regards the
windowing, which is the way an algorithm selects
seismic data from an interval. Attributes are filters,
and like any filter they should employ tapered
windows to reduce Gibb’s effects. Non-tapered or
“boxcar” windows are nonetheless widely used.
Figure 12 compares the effect of a boxcar window
with that of a tapered window of the same length in Figure 10. A comparison on a seismic line of (a) instantaneous frequency, (b) response frequency,
and (c) weighted average frequency computed in a 52 ms window (13 samples); the original
the computation of energy half-time. The boxcar seismic data is overlain in black variable area format. Both response frequency and weighted
window gives rise to banding in the time domain average frequency improve the interpretability of instantaneous frequency, but weighted average
and ringing in the frequency domain, which are the frequency is smoother and easier to comprehend. Red is low frequency, blue is high.

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Too many seismic attributes?
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Figure 11. Illustration of the instability of apparent polarity. The synthetic data is composed of three reflections with a
small amount of random noise. The top reflection has positive polarity, the bottom reflection has negative polarity, and
the middle reflection is a composite of two reflections 4 milliseconds apart. The composite reflection looks like a single
reflection with 90° of phase for which the apparent polarity flips randomly. Every 20th trace is overlain in wiggle format.
Red is positive polarity, blue is negative.

Figure 12. Energy half-time computed with (a) a boxcar window, and with (b) a Hamming window. Both windows are 60 ms window
long (15 samples ms). The Hamming window prevents spectral ringing and provides a clearer image.

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 Article Cont’d
Too many seismic attributes?
Continued from Page 44

Amplitude Phase Frequency Discontinuity Miscellaneous

reflection strength instantaneous phase instantaneous frequency correlation discontinuity arc length
trace envelope cosine of phase weighted average instantaneous semblance discontinuity energy half-time
frequency

instantaneous amplitude apparent polarity weighted average Fourier covariance discontinuity quadrature trace
spectral frequency

RMS amplitude response phase response frequency eigen-structure discontinuity dip-azimuth

(combined)
average or total absolute amplitude average phase spectral bandwidth PC1 shaded relief

maximum peak, minimum unwrapped phase spectral frequency variance PC2 Karhunen-Loeve
trough amplitudes signal complexity
average energy, total energy spectral kurtosis PC3 azimuth, dip
standard amplitude variance instantaneous frequency slope Amoco C3 dip variance

normalized amplitude variance parallelism

Table 1. A list of all the seismic attributes mentioned in this paper categorized by the properties that they measure.

Amplitude Phase Frequency Discontinuity Miscellaneous

reflection strength response phase frequency discontinuity shaded relief

normalized amplitude variance bandwidth azimuth, dip

energy half-time (amplitude change) parallelism

Table 2. The list of seismic attributes from Table 1 after ruthless clean-up.

Gibb’s effects. The tapered window produces a sharper image and a smoother
power spectrum. Where possible, avoid attributes with ringy spectra.

Energy half-time is a measure of amplitude change. Use it in this sense. Optimistic

descriptions that suggest it to be a lithologic indicator are wrong.

I could review many more seismic attributes, including waveform, spectral attrib-
utes, curvature, AVO attributes, and others, to weed out the unnecessary ones. But I
have made my point: there are too many duplicate attributes, too many useless
attributes, and too many misclassified attributes. This breeds confusion and makes
it hard to apply attributes effectively. Reduce your attributes to a manageable subset.
Discard duplicate and dubious attributes, prefer attributes that make intuitive sense,
understand resolution, distinguish processes from attributes, and avoid poorly
designed attributes. Tables 1 and 2 summarize these ideas. Table 1 lists all the attrib-
utes mentioned here, while Table 2 lists only those worth keeping. Table 1 looks
impressive but is too confusing to be helpful. In contrast, Table 2 is more honest and
much clearer, and consequently is more useful.

Do you have too many seismic attributes? Throw away the ones you don’t need and
your attribute analysis will improve.

Acknowledgements
I thank Seitel Data Ltd. for permission to publish the seismic data used in Figures 1
through 7, and I thank the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS, for
permission to publish the data used in Figure 9. R

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