Geophysical investigation of faults and fractures in Upper-Palaeozoic carbonate build-ups at the Loppa High, SW Barents Sea

Abstract

During previous studies of the Upper-Palaeozoic carbonate build-ups at the Loppa High in SW Barents Sea, a connection between locations of the build-ups and syn-depositional faults was observed. This thesis is studying this relationship in detail, applying the Ant-tracking semi-automated method for detection of faults. To my knowledge, this relatively new method has not been used in the Barents Sea area before. The Ant-tracking is a patent protected technology developed by Schlumberger Stavanger Research for PetrelTM software for automatic detection of faults and fractures from three dimensional seismic data. In this thesis, two 3D seismic surveys were used, the SG9810 survey and the high resolution NH0372 site survey. In both of these surveys faults and fractures were revealed. These were further analyzed and also visualized in three dimensions. The connection between the positions of the Upper-Palaeozoic carbonate build-ups and the positions of faults and fractures was confirmed. Furthermore, all the detected build-ups were associated with one or two faults or fractures.