Delineation of Salt Diapirs Using Gravity and Seismic Data in the Danish North Sea

“The quality of depth imaging is directly related to the accuracy of the underlying velocity model (Petmecky et. al. 2007). Correspondingly, the quality of a 3D density model of the subsurface is directly related to its ability to predict the observed gravity signal. This case study presents the work carried out combining gravity and seismic data to constrain the interpretation of the Rolf, Dagmar and Skjold salt diapirs in the Danish sector of the North Sea that ultimately led to an improved seismic image.

Regional analogues along with the residual gravity maps, computed by subtracting the predicted gravity and the observed gravity signal, were used to guide the salt interpretation.

The use of the gravity signal brings valuable and cost effective support to the interpreter by indicating trends in the quantity of salt that the model requires.”