Texture attributes for detection of salt

Within areas of salt tectonics, seismic imaging requires extensive updating of the velocity model. This includes defining the boundaries of salt structures which are often characterized by changes in texture of the seismic signal rather than reflectivity. The main characteristics of texture inside salt structures are identified. Three groups of texture attributes are studied: gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) attributes, frequency-based attributes, and dip and similarity attributes. Various combinations of the selected attributes are tested in a supervised Bayesian classification method. Experimental results show that the classification performance improves by combining at least two texture attribute groups. The classifier computes an estimate of the pixelwise probability of salt. It can then be applied to compute the probability of salt on different seismic sections. Classification results were found more robust based on timeslices. The result from classification, the salt probability image, is then input to a segmentation algorithm that produces a smooth border delimiting the extent of the salt. The segmented salt contours corresponded fairly well to the contours provided by an interpreter.