Abstract: A method of analyzing characteristics of a subterranean formation includes transmitting a signal at least partially into a material of the subterranean formation such that the signal is transformed in a manner indicative of a characteristic of the material, receiving the transformed signal from the material, converting the transformed signal into image data indicative of the characteristic of the material, applying a first set of machine executable rules to the image data to produce segmented image data, wherein portions of the image that are sufficiently related according to the applied rules are grouped into segments, and analyzing, according to a second set of machine executable rules, the segmented image data to produce a geological profile of the subterranean formation.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for determining net-sand thickness and net-reservoir volume over a broad range of gross sand thickness in a target zone. A net-resource attribute is designed to estimate net-sand thickness based upon the inner product of the determined probe function and the segment of the seismic trace that includes the target zone. The net-resource attribute and the geographic location for each trace can be stored and a net-resource table may be created. Maps and net-reservoir volume can be generated from the geographical location information and the net-resource attributes. Net-sand thickness allows the determination of the total volume of sand and thus the size of the hydrocarbon container or the net-reservoir volume.