Hands-on Shortcourse on PaleoScan Seismic Interpretation Software Organized by EAS AAPG Wildcatters Student Group

State-of-the-Art Software Used for Interpretation of Subsurface 2D and 3D Seismic Reflection Data

A two-day software training course, held May 13-14 at the University of Houston Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, introduced participants to PaleoScan Seismic Interpretation Software. Participants, who attended both online and in person, included 13 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students, post-doctoral researchers, and one EAS faculty member.

Classroom
Alfredo Fernandez, software instructor from Eliis, leads the two-day, in-person and online course for using PaleoScan software.

Alfredo Fernandez served as course instructor from the software manufacturer, Eliis. The course was organized by the AAPG Wildcatters, a student group interested in careers in subsurface geology, either applied to hydrocarbon exploration or to carbon capture.

PaleoScan software enables the creation of geological models from seismic reflection data by merging artificial intelligence with the expertise of geoscientists. The software workflow allows for the once-tedious interpretation of dense grids of 2D and 3D seismic reflection data to be greatly accelerated using semi-automated workflows and for the resulting geological interpretations to be carried out at higher resolution. The software can be applied to either finding hydrocarbon accumulations or CO2 storage areas (see PaleoScan overview).

Ellis Logo

Eliis kindly provides academic licenses to EAS students at no charge to the department. Several students in the course are planning to use the software in their graduate research projects.

On the first day, Fernandez presented the theory, mechanics, and model grid parameters of the PaleoScan software. On the second day of the short course, he used a 3D seismic data set from the North Sea to demonstrate the relative geological time models, horizon stacks, and seismic attributes available in the software.

Fernandez, a graduate in geophysics from the University of Oklahoma, joined Eliis in 2019 and worked in oil and gas for 16 years of upstream research, mainly focused on seismic interpretation and exploration of various basins around the world. As part of the Eliis team, he provides software support and training classes to many Houston-based oil and gas companies that are using PaleoScan for their projects.