Solving for facies in seismic inversion as essential for realistic reservoir models

Traditional seismic inversion approaches solve in two steps, first for the elastic properties of the subsurface using seismic data, followed by facies classification. We perform the inversion of facies and elastic properties simultaneous. The stochastic (or geostatistical) inversion is done on a stratigraphic structural grid in a Bayesian framework using the MCMC Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm. Combining all seismic, well and geological constraints simultaneously is required to reduce uncertainty and ensure a consistent and unbiased integration of all data.