Patent ID: 9377548
Filing Date: 2016-06-28
CPC Classification: E21B,G01V

Claim Text:
1. A method for analyzing characteristics of a geological formation, comprising: obtaining, at a processor, data representative of at least one of stratigraphic, structural, or physical characteristics of the geological formation; applying, at the processor, a wavelet transform to at least a portion of the obtained data or data interpreted or derived from the obtained data to derive one or more wavelet transform coefficients representative of the obtained data; segmenting, at the processor, at least one or more of the obtained data or data interpreted or derived from the obtained data into segments; determining, at the processor, a measure of variability of the obtained data or the data interpreted or derived from the obtained data over each segment at one or more scales of the wavelet transform, wherein the measure of variability is based at least on the wavelet transform coefficients corresponding to each segment, and wherein the measure of variability of the obtained data or one or more properties interpreted or derived from the obtained data is obtained as a segment average of squares of magnitude of wavelet transform coefficients at the one or more scales of the wavelet transform; and analyzing, at the processor, each segment based on the determined measure of variability to produce a stratigraphic, structural, or physical classification of the geological formation, wherein the stratigraphic, structural, or physical classification of the geological formation is used to identify certain depositional environments of interest for oil and gas exploration and the certain depositional environments are used to determine distributions of reservoir properties, and wherein the distributions of reservoir properties are used to determine well placement as part of drilling operations for the oil and gas exploration.