Ed Gilmet is a geophysicist at Poco Petroleum, in Calgary (now Burlington). As team leader for northern Alberta, Gilmet is kept extremely busy ensuring that the company's substantial seismic data is properly interpreted.

Three years ago, Gilmet inherited an unfamiliar workstation from a company that Poco bought out. "I was reluctant to use it, because I didn't have the luxury of time to learn," he recalls. "But I loaded one project on it, and realized it was a good machine."

Gilmet had stumbled across the EarthWorks Exploration System, one of the best-kept secrets in the business. EarthWorks is the brainchild of Mark Sun, president and owner of Genetek Earth Research, based in Vancouver (with offices in Calgary and Houston). “We’ve sold systems to individual consultants up to the size of companies such as Shell,” says the 39-year old geophysicist. “Once people see the product, they love it.”

Sun, a geophysics graduate of UBC, began to develop the system from scratch after being hired by Suncor as a seismic interpreter, in 1981. "I found the interpretation tools lacking," he recalls. "I had programming skills, so I began to develop a geophysicist’s interpretation package in my spare time."

When Suncor stopped development on the system in 1988, Sun quit his job, sold his house to buy a workstation, and began to develop the EarthWorks system. "I wanted to build an application that had all the major components in a single system, connected extremely tightly," says Sun. "I wanted it live-linked, so the programs would talk to each other. I wanted it in real-time, so changes

In 1992, the EarthWorks Exploration System was born. The CPU is a Compaq Alpha 64-bit; currently running at over 600 MHz. "It's the only system we write our application to," says Sun. "It's the fastest processor in the world."

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Because a working geophysicist designed EarthWorks, it provides all the sophisticated functions that an interpreter needs, but is easy to use.

Basemaps showing seismic lines, wells, topography, grids and land holdings are easily constructed. "You can import data from all major suppliers via the Internet," says Sun.

Real-time filter, phase and spectral enhancement features allow you to calibrate different-vintage seismic lines and tie in synthetic log responses at the workstation level.

Horizon-picking is automated for quick interpretation, and structure, isochron and other maps can be computed, contoured and 3D visualized on the fly, as horizons are picked. "In most systems, you have to pick horizons, store the
data then import it into a mapping program," says Sun. "EarthWorks does it all instantaneously to continuously give you map results in three dimensions."

Data can be contoured automatically, or the interpreter can introduce strike or other bias to adjust for known structure and/or geology. Interpolated data is automatically ranged to any desired density.

EarthWorks is very strong in stratigraphic interpretation. An amplitude map, which displays the strength of reflection, can show lateral changes in lithology and possibly signal the presence of gas. "You can see amplitude changes even better with Event Imaging (TM), our 3D visualization of 2D and 3D seismic data," says Sun. "The spatial characteristics of the anomaly may point toward a deltaic fan or sinuous channel."

Spectral Analysis can be done in real-time to cover more ground. "Just pick a window in the seismic section, then display the frequency spectrum," says Sun. "You can then fine-tune your seismic data for enhanced band-limited interpretation. Grabbing and dragging the window works like a magnifying glass, enhancing all seismic data beneath the window."

EarthWorks also features a sophisticated synthetic seismogram modeling tool. "You can add porosity by reducing the velocity in an interval," says Sun. "You can also change the thickness of the zone, and the modified synthetic is immediately animated over the actual seismic section in real time.”

Live-linking technology enables maps to flex into new shape on-the-fly when seismic or geological log picks are graphically added, changed or deleted. It also enables you to point to a seismic anomaly and ‘touch’ the depth-converted mapped feature in 3 dimensions.

Another recent innovation is Event Imaging (TM), a new way to interpret 2D and 3D seismic projects. "Geoscientists can rotate the 2D and 3D volume of seismic data, easily identifying seismic events, their structural, amplitude and character distributions," says Sun. Amplitude and time ranges can be made opaque on the fly in order to zero in on anomalies of interest.

One of the newest features to EarthWorks is instantaneous time-depth conversion of event images. "You can take time values and convert them to depth in real time," explains Sun. "Velocity models are quickly built using interactive 3D velocity and depth sculpting tools. Simply pick events and watch the depth map visualize in 3D. You can do it for every play and horizon, in minutes."

"I like the EarthWorks station a lot," says Poco's Ed Gilmet. "It does things that others don't, and it's quicker. If I want to change phase, I click on a button, and it's done. If I want to adjust the phase of a synthetic, I can go through 360 degrees in a matter of seconds. This machine saves you days and days of interpretation."

As part of its newest package, Genetek has slated a pre-stack seismic analysis and geological integration roll-out for this fall. "You can bring up well formation tops and well curves and adjust and plot them on a 3D map," says Sun. "You can take well curves and seismic and paste up a cross section of logs, seismic, or any combination. Geoscientists using AVO have been requesting a real-time pre-stack interpretation workstation. We’re going to make it happen."

In addition, Genetek intends to take advantage of Compaq's slated 1,000 MHz Alpha. "I'm writing software now, which will take advantage of the 1,000 MHz capability when it becomes available next year."