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Seismic Expression over Tulamura anticline, Tripura

Siddiqui, N.A*., Kumar, G.V.R., and Prasad, N.B.R.

[email protected]

Summary
Tulamura anticline which was geologically mapped way back in 1980’s is geographically situated in Tripura foldbelt area of
Assam and Assam-Arakan (A&AA) basin, India. This anticline is long, narrow and tight, trending mostly northeast direction is a
result of late Pliocene movements. Gravity, Magnetic and aeromagnetic data is available over this structural feature whereas 2D
Common Depth Point (CDP) surveys have been for the first time carried out by ONGC in 2006-07. Aeromagnetic data suggests
an east-west trending geo-morphological high whereas the surface geology depicts north-south trending structure explains the
thin skin tectonics. Tulamura anticline is of hydrocarbon interest because the east-west trending basement arch is believed to be
extended up to Bangladesh where numerous gas fields are reported, through Tripura.
The area is seismically unfriendly and therefore poses a challenge to acquisition as well as processing geophysicist. It is well
known that the acquisition reflection quality can not be judged from the shot records but the role of intelligent processing by
removing the unwanted seismic energy from the record will show up the reflection quality. Therefore any traditional approach of
processing will lead the processor to the state of disappointment.
In the present paper, a specialized processing approach is adopted to bring out the seismic expression of Tulamura anticline and
the results are presented.

Introduction
The Tripura area constitutes a part of the Assam-Arakan
geosyncline which mainly covers the states of Assam,
northeastern frontier agency and, Nagaland and Manipur.

Tulamura anticline is situated in the southernmost of

Tripura state in Belonia, Sabrum and Amarpur subdivisions
of south Tripura district. Systematic geological mapping of
Tulamura anticline was carried out in order to delineate the
stratigraphy and structure of the exposed rock succession
and collect other relevant information with a view to assess
hydrocarbon potential of the structure.

The Tulamura anticline is a doubly plunging asymmetrical

anticline with a gentle western limb and a steep faulted
eastern limb. The crestal area of the fold the broad and
gentle and this is succeeded to the east by a sharp
genticulate flexure giving rise to a part-box structure. The Figure 1: Location of Tulamura anticline trending NW-SE in the
anticline is about 40 km long and 18 km wide in its widest state of Tripura.
part (Fig.1).
A longitudinal reverse fault called Tulamura fault hading Far offset: 3075m
west occurs in the eastern limb of the anticline. The throw Foldage: 2*30
of the fault is around 730 meters near the structurally Shooting direction: W-E on dip lines, N-S on strike lines
highest part of the fold and diminishes gradually in eastern Energy source: Explosive
direction towards plunging ends. Record length: 6000 msec
Sampling interval: 2000 micro seconds
Four gas shows have been reported in the crestal region of
the Tulamura anticline. These gas occurrences combined
with the closed doubly plunging nature of the anticline
comprising a thick succession of sandstones and shales,
lenticular nature of the sandstone bodies and the proximity
of known hydrocarbon bearing structures in Bangladesh,
call for extensive seismic surveys and drilling.

Apart from surface geological data, gravity-magnetic data

is also available for the area. An airborne magnetic survey
has been conducted in and around Tripura fold belt and a
generalized basement configuration map has been prepared
by KDMIPE, ONGC (Fig. 2). The iso-anomaly lines in the
basement depth map reveal that the basement trends east-
west direction in contradiction to Tulamura and other
Figure 3: Location of 2D seismic lines that have been shot over the
exposed structures in the area. This suggests that the Tulamura anticline. E-W trending lines are dip lines and S-N lines
basement is a geomorphologic high and the supra-basement are strike lines.
structures are developed due to thin-skin tectonics.
The record length and the far offset parameters should
provide information about the basement at least on the
strike lines. However, the present study is carried out to
elicit the geometrical configuration of the Tulamura
anticline and its role in the entrapment of hydrocarbons.
The seismic acquisitions parameters are optimized in the
field and goaded by the results of forward modeling
(Fig.4).

Figure 2: A generalized basement configuration map for the

Tripura foldbelt area.

Two dimensional CDP surveys are carried out over the

Tulamura anticline by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
Limited (ONGC) during 2006-07 (Fig.3). These CDP
surveys are designed with the following parameters.

Spread geometry: split spread 120+120

No. of channels: 240
Group interval: 25m
Shot interval: 50m Figure 4: The proposed geological model over the Tulamura
anticline and its image after migration obtained from forward
Geophone array type: Bunched
modeling.
Near offset: 100m
Seismic Data Processing the reflection pattern seen near the structure. The dipping
events below the structure look to be against the dips of the
Processing of seismic data acquired from foldbelt areas is structure. It is found that the migration route through DMO
not an unknown mettre en doute because the quality of did not produce fairly a noise-free image (Figs. 5 and 6.).
seismic data depends on many factors including technical Pre stack Time and Depth migration are also failed in a
and non-technical matters. The acquisition geophysicist different way for the reasons already explained in the
deems that any flaw in acquisition stage will be abovementioned lines.
compensated during processing. In general, two types of
data come from foldbelt areas. One is with poor S/N and
this type of data can be handled with care by choosing
appropriate noise attenuation algorithms and selectively
applying them in different domains in the pre-stack stage to
enhance the signal. Second is with in appropriate geometry
which means that the S/N is not consistent along the
seismic line and this varying degree of S/N poses threat to
the processor to optimize the parameters of noise
attenuation algorithms. Furthermore, the so called
additional benefits that come from redundancy and dearth
of proper offsets warrants any model based processing and
if ignored, model based processing may cause artifacts in
the data.
Figure 5: Seismic section along a dip line over Tulamura anticline.
F-X migration is carried out on the data. Imaging is reasonably
Example good except near the fault zone on the eastern side.

The CDP data acquired over Tulamura anticline

surprisingly fall into a third category which is a hybrid type
of one and two explained above. However, attempts are
made to process the data in order to output a meaningful
seismic expression to make it consistent with the proposed
geological model. Albeit, all the dip and strike lines are
processed, a couple of dip lines are presented for this study.

Processing is started with application of geometry, field

statics and gain corrections. Spikes in the data and sluggish
amplitudes are removed by automatic editing routines. At
this stage, the difference sections are produced and Figure 6: Seismic section along another dip line showing good
examined to care for the signal. One dimensional wavelet imaging.
transform is used to suppress the ground roll. Surface
consistent amplitude and deconvolution processes are In the present work, to obtain a better image of Tulamura
applied on the data. A second pass noise attenuation is anticline, a slightly different processing flow is adopted
carried out to attenuate any possible unwanted from that of customary flow in which DMO is replaced
reinforcement of noise during the deconvolution process. with FK migration algorithm. The processing flow follows
Velocity analysis is carried out for Normal Moveout like, after residual static corrections, common offset planes
(NMO) correction. After designing a proper NMO stretch are generated and each common offset plane is migrated
mute, the CMP gathers are stacked to produce a seismic with a constant velocity using post stack FK migration
image. At this stage only patchy reflections are seen on the algorithm which should improve the steep dip conditions
eastern side of the line. Several iterations of surface near the fault zone. To obtain a constant velocity for FK
consistent residual static corrections and velocity analyses migration, multi panel velocity tests are carried out. The
helped to improve the data. Kirchhoff migration, F-K stacked output is then migrated using finite difference
migration, F-X migration and Wave-equation migration are solution of the wave equation algorithm which should
tested on the stack after Dip Moveout (DMO) corrected migrate dips up to 45 degrees with a smooth velocity field
data. All migration algorithms worked more or less in the obtained after DMO. This process produced an image that
same way but failed to produce a cleaner expression. DMO is more reasonable and consistent with the existing
velocities are perturbed for various percentages and used geological model.
during migrations but did not help. It is found that coherent
energy getting aligned in the deeper part of the section
below the Tulamura anticline which has no correlation with
Discussion and Conclusion
For several reasons, the data come from foldbelt areas will
be of noisy. For the case of two dimensional CDP surveys,
coarse sub-surface sampling, the out of plane reflections,
scattering of reflection energy, approximating 3D body to a
2D body, not considering the lateral dips cause difficulties
during processing. This case history suggests that a
different thinking and slightly un-customary processing
flows yield reasonable imaging of foldbelt structures.

References
Ganguly, S., Ahuja, A.D., and Bhasin, A.L., 1971, Geology
of Tulamura anticline, Tripura, compiled report of field
season 1969-70 and 1970-71. ONGC, Dehradun, 1971.

Operational Report of seismic surveys conducted in

Tulamura area, Tripura, by GP27, ONGC, MBA Basin,
Kolkata, 2006-07.

Acknowledgement
This paper appears with the kind permission of
management of ONGC and the views expressed herein are
of authors only.