CHARACTERIZING DEPOSITIONAL FEATURES BY GEOLOGIC-BASED SEISMIC CLASSIFICATION

The disclosure provides methods and systems for characterizing depositional features. The methods and systems include accessing data encoding seismic waves as seismic traces reflected from cells at various locations within a particular stratum in response to a seismic source. The cells are classified into multiple non-overlapping groups according to the amplitude values or other seismic attributes of the seismic waves reflected from the various locations within the particular stratum. One or more subgroups of adjacent cells are identified. A subgroup area metric is calculated for each subgroup of cells by combining individual area metrics from adjacent cells in a given subgroup and subsequently assigning the calculated subgroup area metric to each cell of the given subgroup. One or more depositional features within the stratum are characterized based at least in part on the variation map based on the subgroup area metric of each cell.