3D fault imaging using windowed Radon transforms: an example from the North Sea

The interpretation of fault surfaces is key to understanding the subsurface geology represented in 3D seismic volumes. The geologic structure represented by seismic reflections can be auto-tracked in the volume. Faults, however, are imaged as discontinuities or changes in curvature in the seismic data. For many years, fault interpretation involved manually picking fault cuts on orthogonal slices through the seismic volume. These fault cuts were grouped into conceptual faults, and 3D fault surfaces were created from the fault cuts.