Tu ELI2 10

Broad-band Well Tie

R.E. White (Birkbeck University of London) & E. Zabihi Naeini* (Ikon
Science)

SUMMARY
By extending the low-frequency content, broad-band seismic data lessens the dependence of seismic
inversion on a background model. Despite that, the merging of the inverted seismic with a very low
frequency background model poses a new problem: the duration of a well-log synthetic seismogram is
often seriously inadequate for defining the sharp spectral decay to zero frequency. To address this issue, a
practical approach based on multi-taper spectral analysis is proposed to determine the low-frequency
spectral decay of the seismic well tie wavelet. Furthermore the impact on seismic inversion is
demonstrated.

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
Introduction

By extending the low-frequency content, broad-band seismic data lessens the dependence of seismic
inversion on a background model. Despite that, the merging of the inverted seismic with a very low
frequency background poses a new problem: the duration of a well-log synthetic seismogram, 500 ms
say, is seriously inadequate for defining the sharp spectral decay to zero frequency. The demands from
recording higher frequencies are more tractable, requiring precise timing of the well-log synthetic
seismogram and meticulous imaging. Between the low and high frequencies, the broad bandwidth may
also strain the trade-off between stability and resolution if the seismic spectrum is not fairly flat.

For reliable results all well ties require accurate modelling of the synthetic seismogram and good quality
seismic data of sufficient duration relative to the length of the seismic wavelet. The purpose of this paper
is to propose a practical approach to determining the low-frequency spectral decay of the seismic
wavelet when tying well-log synthetic seismograms to broad-band seismic data.

Well tie principles

The principles of making a well tie are essentially the principles of system identification adapted to the
characteristic properties of seismic data and limited time duration of well-log synthetic seismograms.
The tutorial of White and Simm (2003) covers these principles in more detail with examples. The
following considers only those that particularly affect ties with broad-band data.

A routine least-squares best-fit well tie assumes that the synthetic seismogram is error-free. As a con-
sequence the best-fit filter is not the seismic wavelet but the wavelet combined with a Wiener filter for
attenuating the noise in the synthetic. The frequency domain solution can be adapted to account of errors
in the synthetic seismogram as well as noise in the data (Walden and White (1998)). The frequency do-
main approach also has the major advantage of providing diagnostics of the accuracy of a well tie, such
as error bars or confidence bounds on the amplitude and phase spectrum of the seismic wavelet. In the
time domain sample-to-sample correlations make confidence bounds so multi-dimensional that the only
credible recourse is to produce Monte Carlo realisations of the wavelet. White and Simm (2003) empha-
sise the need for these diagnostics, rather than goodness-of-fit which may simply indicate over-
fitting. The frequency domain approach has another advantage when estimating the sharp spectral
decays at the edges of seismic spectra: spectral analysis has tools specifically for spectra with a large
dynamic range.

As with most estimation procedures, a well tie involves a trade-off between stability and resolution.
Insofar as noise in the system is largely random, this becomes a trade-off between noise-induced random
errors and bias or distortion. The limited time duration of well-log synthetic seismograms accentuates
this trade-off. In the time domain a finite data duration induces sampling errors into both auto- and
cross-correlations. Assuming a compact wavelet and a reasonable signal-to-noise (S/N) in the data, the
signal dominates the short lag correlations whereas sampling errors affect all lags. With increasing lag
the sampling errors tend to dominate. The application of a lag window to the correlations then has to
balance the control of sampling errors with avoiding serious truncation of the signal correlation. In
the frequency domain this becomes a balance between choosing a spectral window narrow enough to
capture the spectral shape and wide enough to allow sufficient spectral smoothing to attenuate random
errors. The spectral window can be characterised by its analysis bandwidth b. The spectral smoothing is
then bT where T is the duration of the data segment. Since T and the data bandwidth B are both limited,
the latter by the S/N, this forces a need to balance the demand of stability that bT be as large as possible
with the requirement of resolution that b is a fraction of B.

In the past an acceptable well tie to the North Sea data typically required BT ≥ 25, corresponding to
data having a bandwidth B~50 Hz and a T~500 ms synthetic seismogram. This assumes that the
data spectrum is reasonably flat or smooth over the 50 Hz bandwidth and that the proportion of trace
energy predicted (PEP) by the well tie is 0.6 or more. While such estimation is reliable over the seismic
bandwidth, the low-frequency response of the seismic wavelet is not estimated well. This is because the

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
decay of seismic spectra towards zero frequency is too sharp to be estimated reliably from 500 ms data
segments. This lack of spectral resolution becomes acute with broad-band data whose spectrum
extends down to frequencies of 4 Hz or less.

Estimation of the low-frequency spectral decay demands the use of longer data segments. The wavelet
amplitude spectrum is then obtained from the square root of the seismic power spectrum divided by the
reflectivity power spectrum (or a model for the reflectivity colouring). This division assumes that the
data and synthetic have the same S/N (Walden and White, 1998). The reflectivity colouring is unlikely
to have much effect on the low-frequency decay. The estimated decay is then merged onto the wavelet
spectrum. At low frequencies it is important to minimise spectral leakage, i.e. leakage of power through
the side lobes of the spectral window from the nearby pass-band. Multi-taper spectral analysis using
prolate spheroidal tapers (Percival and Walden, 1993) is designed for this task. In this method the
spectral averaging comes from the number of tapers 2nw − 1 where nw is the taper’s time-bandwidth
product. The spectral resolution is proportional to 1/T. Since smoothing bias from the main lobe of the
spectral window is unavoidable, the choice of nw and T is a critical decision. The example in the next
section indicates that stable estimation of a 18 dB/oct decay from 4 Hz needs a 4 s trace segment with
nw = 4. For practical reasons use of a shorter data segment centred on the well tie would be desirable.
Since sacrificing resolution would blur the decay, use of 2 s of data, say, demands that nw is reduced to
2. One then has to rely on areal averaging of spectra around the well to reduce sampling fluctuations.
At high-frequencies estimation of a 18 dB/oct roll-off is not a problem but the same approach may
be needed for sharper roll-offs. The main problem at high frequencies comes from timing errors in
the synthetic seismogram which increase estimation errors and introduce a false amplitude decay if the
synthetic is assumed to be error-free.

Direct estimation of the low-frequency phase is not possible from a well tie. The estimated phase at zero
frequency is either 0゜or ±180゜ , depending on whether the sum of wavelet coefficients happens to
be positive or negative. Really the phase at zero frequency jumps between -m×90゜and m×90゜when
the low frequency decay is m × 6 dB/oct. Thus estimation of the amplitude decay becomes doubly
important since it gives a clue to the phase at zero frequency. The phase can then be interpolated to
the nearest reliable low-frequency estimate.

When there is not enough well log available to satisfy the requirement of BT ≥ 25, it is unrealistic to
expect to estimate a phase spectrum. The pragmatic option is to use a constant phase wavelet. This uses
fewer degrees of freedom than estimating a phase spectrum and has some empirical basis in that, after
processing, the phase of seismic wavelets is often approximately constant across the seismic bandwidth.
If need be, the constant phase φC can be modified by simple extrapolation to the phase φ0 at zero fre-
quency (e.g. to φC + (φ0 − φC ) exp(−f/fc) where fc is a corner frequency). The amplitude spectrum can be
computed by spectral division as described above.

Simulated example

To simulate a well tie, an artificial seismic reflection signal was constructed by filtering a sequence
of Laplacian random numbers with a minimum phase 4 − 80 Hz Butterworth impulse response. The
amplitude spectrum of this wavelet decays at 18 dB/oct outside its passband. 4 − 80 Hz random noise
was added to the filtered reflectivity. The rms signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of the simulated data was
2. Since the S/N power ratio is 4, the ratio of signal power to trace power is 0.8, which corresponds
to the proportion of trace power (PEP) that can ideally be predicted by least-squares filtering of the
primary reflectivity. A 500 ms segment of reflectivity was then matched to the simulated data using an
analysis bandwidth b of 8.4 Hz. Although this is too broad a spectral window to detect the low-cut notch
below 4 Hz, the spectral smoothing, bT = 4.2, cannot be reduced further without incurring undesirable
estimation errors, resulting in a noise-prone estimate of the seismic wavelet. Figure 1 compares the
estimated and input wavelet spectra. Clearly the estimated amplitude spectrum gives no indication of
the 18 dB/oct decay below 4 Hz and the estimated phase misses the trend to 270゜at zero frequency.
Beyond 80 Hz the amplitude spectrum captures the 18 dB/oct decay down to -30 dB, which in

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
practice would often fall below the noise floor. While the estimates at high frequency are not seriously
amiss, the simulation is very idealised. In practice small timing misalignments would at least inflate
the error bars.

Figure 1 Simulation of a well tie showing results from estimating a seismic wavelet by matching a
500 ms reflectivity sequence to noisy 4-80 Hz seismic data. left: amplitude spectra of the input and
estimated wavelets; right: phase spectra of the input and estimated wavelets.

To detect the low frequency decay, varying lengths of the noisy seismic trace were analysed by the
multi-taper method using a time-bandwidth product of nw=4. It was not until a 4 s segment of data is
analysed (Figure 2A) that the low-frequency decay is detected with reasonable accuracy. This decay
was merged into the wavelet spectrum below 5.86 Hz. The phase at zero frequency inferred from the
18 dB/oct rate of decay is ±270゜which was interpolated to the 5.86 Hz phase estimate (Figure 2B) at
neighbouring frequencies. Modelling the acquisition system may help infer other "guesstimates" of
the low-frequency phase. It is not easy to discriminate between different guesstimates from inspection
of the wavelet because the broad low-amplitude side lobes characteristic of a sharp low-cut are
obscured by noise-induced fluctuations (Figure 2C).

Figure 2 A: amplitude spectra at low

frequencies from the well tie wavelet and
multitaper analysis using varying lengths of
trace compared with the Butterworth low-
cut response; B: phase spectra of the input
and estimated wavelets at low frequencies
and an extrapolation of the estimated phase
to 270゜; C: comparison of the phase-
adjusted wavelet estimate with the
Butterworth impulse response.

Estimation of the high-frequency spectral decay was not a problem. The multi-taper method using a
500 ms data segment captures the 18 dB/oct high-frequency decay down to -50 dB and from longer
segments follows it easily to below -100 dB.

Practical applications

This example comes from conventional

data that gave a very close well tie. The
low-cut corner frequency is ~8 Hz. The
effect of the low-frequency gap is
emphasised because it is wider than in
broad-band data. Figure 3 shows the
seismic wavelet and its amplitude
spectrum before and after including a low-
Figure 3 Left: the wavelet estimated from the well
cut response. The phase was extrapolated to
tie. Right: the modified wavelet.
360゜at zero frequency. Figure 4 shows the

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
data and band-limited impedance sections obtained using the well-tie wavelet and the modified
wavelet. The striations in the centre panel correspond to a random walk component caused by
integrating low-frequency energy that is not part of the seismic signal. Figure 5 shows the well tie
wavelet and modified wavelet estimated from broad-band seismic data. Modification of the amplitude
spectra is obvious at the low frequency end of the spectrum. These two wavelets were both used in
AVO type inversion to derive the impedances. A good QC for this is to see how the inverted
impedance models the seismic i.e. the difference between modelled and actual seismic should be
minimal. Figure 5C shows that the modified wavelet has reduced the residual energy.

Conclusions

Although broad-band seismic data lessens the

dependence of seismic inversion on a
background model, it is still desirable to
merge the inverted seismic with a low
frequency background model. Well ties do
not offer the spectral resolution needed to
define the low frequency cut-off of the broad-
band data. We propose application of multi-
taper spectral analysis to determine this cut-
off. The estimated cut-off can also help define
the phase spectrum at low frequencies. We
demonstrated the application of this technique
Figure 4 Left: seismic data. Centre:
on conventional and broad-band seismic data
impedance section from inversion using the
inversion.
wavelet estimated from the well tie. Right:
impedance section from inversion using the
modified wavelet.

(A) (B) (C)

1 km

Figure 5 A: Original well tie

wavelet, B: modified wavelet
and C: residual energy from
modelling the seismic with
Acknowledgements wavelet A and B.

We thank Ikon Science for support of this research and Mike Bacon for useful discussions.
References
Percival, D. and Walden, A. [1993] Spectral Analysis for Physical Applications: Multitaper and
Conventional Univariate Techniques. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1st edition.

Walden, A. and White, R. [1998] Seismic wavelet estimation: a frequency domain solution to a
geophysical noisy input–output problem. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing,
36(1), 287-297.

White, R.E. and Simm, R. [2003] Tutorial: Good practice in well ties. First Break, 21(10), 75-83.

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014