AGR Professionals Write Paper on Human Factors in Seismic Uncertainty Published 18.06.2015
Seismic Uncertainty - how good are we at describing the range?

Principal Geophysicist, Liz Chellingsworth, with colleagues Tim Wynn, Lead Geologist, (pictured) and Mark Bentley, Director TRACS Training, have recently published a paper on "Human factors in seismic uncertainty — Restoring a realistic uncertainty range" in SEG/AAPG's Interpretation Journal Special Section on Seismic Uncertainties in May 2015.

In the paper the authors promote a multi-deterministic approach to interpretation and depth conversion to overcome human factors that compromise our ability to produce sufficiently wide uncertainty ranges.
 
Three human factors are highlighted that affect the decision-making process:

• anchoring
• availability
• overconfidence.

Interpreters should avoid anchoring on a base case and focus on alternative possibilities. They should be wary of judging which methodology is best only by the ease with which it comes to mind. Technical specialists should guard against overconfidence in their data, interpretation, and ability to describe the full uncertainty space.
 
If you are interested to find out more about the paper or discuss the aspects mentioned above, please contact the authors here.

Our subsurface and seismic interpretation capabilities are described on the Reservoir Management webapge.

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