Application of geologically constrained machine learning method in characterizing paleokarst reservoirs of Tarim Basin, China

Abstract

As deep carbonate fracture-cavity paleokarst reservoirs are deeply buried and highly heterogeneous, and the responded seismic signals have weak amplitudes and low signal-to-noise ratios. Machine learning in seismic exploration provides a new perspective to solve the above problems, which is rapidly developing with compelling results. Applying machine learning algorithms directly on deep seismic signals or seismic attributes of deep carbonate fracture-cavity reservoirs without any prior knowledge constraints will result in wasted computation and reduce the accuracy. We propose a method of combining geological constraints and machine learning to describe deep carbonate fracture-cavity paleokarst reservoirs. By empirical mode decomposition, the time-frequency features of the seismic data are obtained and then a sensitive frequency is selected using geological prior constraints, which is input to fuzzy C-means cluster for characterizing the reservoir distribution. Application on Tahe oilfield data shows the potential of highlighting subtle geologic structures that might otherwise escape unnoticed by applying machine learning directly.