Patent ID: 8729903

Claim:
A method for remotely assessing hydrocarbon source rock potential of a subsurface region, source rock potential being measured by total organic carbon content, comprising: (a) obtaining electromagnetic field data representative of the subsurface region from a survey conducted above the subsurface region; (b) obtaining reflection data from a surface seismic survey of the subsurface region; (c) extracting a vertical profile of an anisotropic component of resistivity or its reciprocal, conductivity, from the electromagnetic data and a vertical profile of an anisotropic component of acoustic velocity or its reciprocal quantity, transit time, from the seismic reflection data, thus generating two profiles hereinafter called the resistivity profile and the transit time profile, wherein said anisotropic components are selected based on sensitivity to total organic carbon content; wherein, an anisotropic component of resistivity means resistivity for a current flow in a specified direction, and an anisotropic component of velocity means a vector component of velocity; and (d) evaluating depth intervals in the subsurface region for source rock potential based on differences between the two profiles; wherein at least (c) is performed using a computer.