Fault interpretation in seismic volumes is an essential task to understand the structural geology of the subsurface and a key role in decision-making related to well planning and reducing operational risks. During the last decades, it has developed seismic attributes based on different algorithms which preserving and highlighting amplitude discontinuities that typically are associated with faults. Moreover, distinct methodologies and workflows have been proposed to highlight and identify geological faults in seismic data as of the unification of those attributes. In the present project, we analyze different types of seismic attributes available in seismic interpretation software such as dip-steered median filter, structural smoothing, amplitude contrast, variance, dip illumination, fault likelihood and likewise integrates spectral decomposition by continuous wavelet transform and swarm algorithms to attenuate the random seismic noise, preserve the amplitude discontinuities, smooth the seismic reflectors and highlight the lineal features and finally skeletonize them. Through seismic data conditioning, edge detection and edge enhancement we obtain an ant-tracking volume in which geological faults, their locations, extensions, orientations are more accurately identified and at the same time enables the automatic extraction of fault planes. Additionally, owing to the good definition of the fault planes on the final ant-tracking it is possible to extract the density fracture attribute to identify qualitatively high fracture density zones to be avoided for future wellbore paths. The different seismic attributes and the spectral decomposition were tested by using a seismic volume of an oil field located in the Middle Magdalena Valley basin characterized by a high random noise level and complex geological structures. The final ant-tracking volume mainly distinguishes two fault systems with NW-SE trend: 1. Conjugate normal faults altogether with scissors faults and 2. High angle reverse faults associated with tectonic inversion events.
The new challenges of the oil and gas industry require the development of new techniques and technologies to reduce the risk failure during drilling operations. Using seismic data is possible to analyse the geological configuration of the subsurface. With the development of seismic attributes at the end of the last century, the way in which seismic interpreters elaborate geological models has changed. Seismic attributes reveal characteristics, relations, and patterns of seismic information that cannot be easily perceived (Chopra & Marfurt, 2007). Seismic attributes are tools to infer geology from seismic data (Barnes, 2001). Therefore, they help to solve dissimilar problems associated with the interpretation and characterization of the subsurface geological configuration. For instance, identifying fault patterns and structural styles. Furthermore, they contribute to the mitigation of a certain number of wellbore stability problems such as lost circulation or overpressure, that result in non-productive times and economic effects. Planning the wellbore trajectory to avoid possible areas of fluid losses near faults is a way to prevent lost circulation. These areas could also be related to formations with natural fractures and areas surrounding fault planes where rocks tend to have a brittle behavior. So that, the presence of surrounding fractures allows the circulating fluid to filtrate through the formation, increasing the risk of lost circulation (Lavrov, 2016).