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Spectral decomposition is a modern tool that utilizes seismic data to generate additional useful information in seismic exploration for hydrocarbon detection, lithology identification, stratigraphic interpretation, filtering and others. Different spectral decomposition methods with applications to seismic data were reported and investigated in past years. Many methods usually do not consider the non-stationary features of seismic data and, therefore, are not likely to give satisfactory results. S-transform developed in recent years is able to provide time-dependent frequency analysis while maintaining a direct relationship with the Fourier spectrum, a unique property that other methods of spectral decomposition may not have. In this thesis, I investigated the feasibility and efficiency of using S-transform for hydrocarbon detection and time-varying surface wave filtering. S-transform was first applied to two seismic data sets from a clastic reservoir in the North Sea and a deep carbonate reservoir in the Sichuan Basin, China. Results from both cases demonstrated that S-transform decomposition technique can detect hydrocarbon zones effectively and helps to build the relationships between lithology changes and high frequency variation and between hydrocarbon occurrence and low-frequency anomaly. However, its time resolution needs to be improved. In the second part of my thesis, I used S-transform to develop a novel Time-frequency-wave-number-domain (T-F-K) filtering method to separate surface wave from reflected waves in seismic records. The S-T-F-K filtering proposed here can be used to analyze surface waves on separate f-k panels at different times. The method was tested using hydrophone records of four-component seismic data acquired in the shallow-water Persian Gulf where the average water depth is about 10m and Scholte waves and other surfaces wave persistently strong. Results showed that this new S-T-F-K method is able to separate and sttenuate surface waves and to improve greatly the quality of seismic reflection signals that are otherwise completely concealed by the aliased surface waves.

Many hydrocarbon detection techniques have been developed for decades and one of the most efficient techniques for hydrocarbon exploration in recent years is well known as amplitude versus offset analysis (AVO). However, AVO analysis does not always result in successful hydrocarbon finds because abnormal seismic amplitude variations can sometimes be caused by other factors, such as alternative lithology and residual hydrocarbons in certain depositional environments. Furthermore, not all gas fields are associated with obvious AVO anomalies. Therefore, new techniques should be applied to combine with AVO for hydrocarbon detection. In my thesis, I, through case studies, intend to investigate and validate the wave decomposition technique as a new tool for hydrocarbon detection which decomposes seismic wave into different frequency contents and may help identify better the amplitude anomalies associated with hydrocarbon occurrence for each frequency due to seismic attenuation. The wavelet decomposition analysis technique has been applied in two geological settings in my study: clastic reservoir and carbonate reservoir. Results from both cases indicate that the wavelet decomposition analysis technique can be used for hydrocarbon detection effectively if the seismic data quality is good. This technique can be directly applied to the processed 2D and 3D pre-stack/post-stack data sets (1) to detect hydrocarbon zones in both clastic and carbonate reservoirs by analyzing the low frequency signals in the decomposed domain and (2) to identify thin beds by analyzing the high frequency signals in the decomposed domain. In favorable cases, the method may possibly help separate oil from water in high-porosity and high-permeability carbonate reservoirs deeply buried underground. Therefore, the wavelet analysis would be a powerful tool to assist geological interpretation and to reduce risk for hydrocarbon exploration.