none 10.1190/geo2022-0217.1 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Society of Exploration Geophysicists 186 144899818 5981 2025121212105246600 10.1190 2025-12-12T17:11:02Z 2023-02-08T09:14:27Z 2 Geophysics 0016-8033 1942-2156 05 01 2023 88 3 Shengjuan Cai Imperial College London 1 , Resource Geophysics Academy, South Kensington, London, UK and , Department of Earth Science and Engineering, South Kensington, London, UK. s.cai20@imperial.ac.uk Imperial College London 1 , Resource Geophysics Academy, South Kensington, London, UK and , Department of Earth Science and Engineering, South Kensington, London, UK. s.cai20@imperial.ac.uk http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3032-2882 Fangxin Fang Imperial College London 1 , Resource Geophysics Academy, South Kensington, London, UK and , Department of Earth Science and Engineering, South Kensington, London, UK. f.fang@imperial.ac.uk Imperial College London 1 , Resource Geophysics Academy, South Kensington, London, UK and , Department of Earth Science and Engineering, South Kensington, London, UK. f.fang@imperial.ac.uk http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3777-8428 Yanghua Wang Imperial College London 1 , Resource Geophysics Academy, South Kensington, London, UK and , Department of Earth Science and Engineering, South Kensington, London, UK. yanghua.wang@imperial.ac.uk (corresponding author) Imperial College London 1 , Resource Geophysics Academy, South Kensington, London, UK and , Department of Earth Science and Engineering, South Kensington, London, UK. yanghua.wang@imperial.ac.uk (corresponding author) http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1044-4348 ABSTRACT Seismic–well tying is an important technique for correlating well-logging curves in depth with seismic traces in time. An appropriate seismic–well tying technique must account for two types of nonstationarity: the nonstationary time errors in the synthetic seismic trace caused by the inaccurate time–depth relationship established based on sonic-logging velocity and the nonstationary seismic signals due to the time-varying wavelets during wave propagation. The nonstationary problems related to the time–depth relationship and the time-varying wavelets are interrelated in seismic-well tying procedure. We implemented a nonstationary seismic–well tying method by iteratively updating the time-depth relationship and estimating the time-varying wavelets. From the estimated time-varying wavelets, we also estimated a Q-value by assuming that the subsurface medium has a constant Q at depth and used the constant Q to constrain the variation of the seismic wavelet during propagation. Then, we used the improved time–depth relationship and time-varying wavelets with the Q constraint for further iterations. In the iterative procedure, we quantified the accuracy of the seismic–well tying result using the correlation coefficient between the synthetic and the true seismic trace in each iteration and evaluated the reliability using the normalized mean-square errors among the wavelets estimated in different iterations. 04 12 2023 05 01 2023 02 08 2023 M145 M155 Resource Geophysics Academy, Imperial College London 1 10.1190/crossmark-policy library.seg.org true 2022-04-11 2022-12-26 2023-01-10 2023-04-12 Resource Geophysics Academy, Imperial College London 10.1190/geo2022-0217.1 https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geophysics/article/88/3/M145/622136/Nonstationary-seismic-well-tying-with-time-varying https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/seg/geophysics/article-pdf/88/3/M145/5872593/geo-2022-0217.1.pdf https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/seg/geophysics/article-pdf/88/3/M145/5872593/geo-2022-0217.1.pdf https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geophysics/article/88/3/m145/622136/nonstationary-seismic-well-tying-with-time-varying 0148-0227 Journal of Geophysical Research Backus 67 4427 1962 10.1029/JZ067i011p04427 Long-wave elastic anisotropy produced by horizontal layering The Leading Edge Bianco 35 541 2016 10.1190/tle35060541.1 Tutotial: Wavelet estimation for well ties Journal of Geophysics and Engineering Chen 10 2013 10.1088/1742-2132/10/6/065002 High-resolution seismic processing by Gabor deconvolution 0016-8033 Geophysics Constable 52 289 1987 10.1190/1.1442303 Occam’s inversion: A practical algorithm for generating smooth models from electromagnetic sounding data Journal of Geophysics and Engineering Duchesne 8 514 2011 10.1088/1742-2132/8/4/004 Did you smooth your well logs the right way for seismic interpretation 0016-8033 Geophysics Edgar 76 4 V59 2011 10.1190/1.3587220 How reliable is statistical wavelet estimation 0016-8033 Geophysics Gardner 39 770 1974 10.1190/1.1440465 Formation velocity and density — The diagnostic basics for stratigraphic traps 0016-8033 Geophysics Herrera 79 3 V47 2014 10.1190/geo2013-0248.1 A semiautomatic method to tie well logs to seismic data Knowledge and Information Systems Keogh 7 358 2005 10.1007/s10115-004-0154-9 Exact indexing of dynamic time warping 0148-0227 Journal of Geophysical Research Kjartansson 84 4737 1979 10.1029/JB084iB09p04737 Constant Q-wave propagation and attenuation Journal of Geophysics and Engineering Li 19 724 2022 10.1093/jge/gxac046 Nonstationary phase-corrected full-waveform inversion with attenuation compensation in viscoacoustic medium 0016-8025 Geophysical Prospecting Longbottom 36 115 1988 10.1111/j.1365-2478.1988.tb02155.x Principles and application of maximum kurtosis phase estimation1 Numerical methods of exploration seismology Margrave 2018 10.1017/9781316756041 0016-8033 Geophysics Margrave 76 3 W15 2011 10.1190/1.3560167 Gabor deconvolution: Estimating reflectivity by nonstationary deconvolution of seismic data 0016-8033 Geophysics Muñoz 80 5 IM45 2015 10.1190/geo2014-0449.1 Automatic simultaneous multiple well ties 0016-8033 Geophysics Peterson 20 516 1955 10.1190/1.1438155 The synthesis of seismograms from well log data 0096-3518 IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Sakoe 26 43 1978 10.1109/TASSP.1978.1163055 Dynamic programming algorithm optimization for spoken word recognition 0016-8033 Geophysics Stewart 49 1153 1984 10.1190/1.1441745 Seismic versus sonic velocities: A vertical seismic profiling study 0016-8025 Geophysical Prospecting Walden 32 871 1984 10.1111/j.1365-2478.1984.tb00744.x On errors of fit and accuracy in matching synthetic seismograms and seismic traces Seismic inverse Q filtering Wang 2008 0016-8033 Geophysics Wang 80 2 A31 2015 10.1190/geo2014-0441.1 Frequencies of the Ricker wavelet Seismic inversion, theory and applications Wang 2016 10.1002/9781119258032 Time-frequency analysis of seismic signals Wang 2022 10.1002/9781119892373 Journal of Geophysics and Engineering Wang 1 187 2004 10.1088/1742-2132/1/3/003 Modified Kolsky model for seismic attenuation and dispersion First Break White 21 75 2003 10.3997/1365-2397.21.10.25640 Tutorial: Good practice in well ties 0016-8033 Geophysics Wu 82 1 IM13 2017 10.1190/geo2016-0295.1 Simultaneous multiple well-seismic ties using flattened synthetic and real seismograms 0016-8033 Geophysics Zhang 87 2 R213 2022 10.1190/geo2020-0745.1 Estimation of the depth-domain seismic wavelet based on velocity substitution and a generalized seismic wavelet model 0016-8033 Geophysics Ziolkowski 63 297 1998 10.1190/1.1444324 Wavelets, well ties, and the search for subtle stratigraphic traps