Geological Storytelling - Graphically Exploring and Communicating Geological Sketches

Abstract

Developing structural geological models from exploratory subsea imaging is difficult and an ill-posed process. Therefore, in practice several experts generate a larger number of geological interpretations. This leads to the situation that a number of geological sketches are prepared and examined for the next steps in the oil and gas exploration pipeline. In this paper, we present Geological Storytelling, a novel graphical approach for performing rapid and expressive geomodeling of a multitude of model variations. The solution builds on a flip-over metaphor for sketching the individual steps in a story that externalizes the mental steps the modeler performs when developing the model. The stories, through the discrete story steps, are then visualized in a Story Tree for easy access and management. This tree also provides the interface for individual story playback and examination, or comparative visualization of several stories. With our approach, the experts can rapidly sketch geological stories that both visualize the proposed model of today's geology and visualize how the expert derived this model. Presenting the model as a visual story helps the peers to evaluate the geological soundness of the model. We have developed geological storytelling in collaboration with domain experts that work with such challenges on a daily basis. Our focus of this work has been on models derived from single seismic slices. We have implemented a prototype of Geological Storytelling to demonstrate our concept and to get domain expert feedback.