Patent ID: 9417348
Filing Date: 2016-08-16
CPC Classification: G01V

Claim Text:
1. A computer-implemented method for analyzing microseismic data from a subterranean zone, the method comprising: receiving microseismic event data associated with a fracture treatment of a subterranean zone; identifying coplanar subsets of microseismic events in the received microseismic event data, each of the coplanar subsets comprising a non-collinear triplet of microseismic events in the received microseismic event data; determining a basic plane orientation for each of a plurality of basic planes defined by the coplanar subsets, each basic plane orientation being defined by the non-collinear triplet of microseismic events in a respective one of the coplanar subsets, each basic plane having an orientation relative to a common axis, updating, by data processing apparatus, clusters of orientations of the basic planes identified adaptively based on an extent of variation in the orientations; identifying the number of orientations associated with each of the clusters; displaying a histogram of the basic plane orientations, wherein the histogram indicates the number of orientations associated with each of the clusters; and identifying a dominant fracture orientation for the each of the clusters based on the number of orientations associated with the each of the clusters, the dominant fracture orientation representing an orientation of a physical fracture within the subterranean zone.