Modeling of geological structures accounting for structural constraints: faults, fold axes and dip domains.

Guillaume Caumon and Julien Clément and David Riffault and Christophe Antoine. ( 2009 )
in: Proc. 29th Gocad Meeting, Nancy

Abstract

In recent years, the development of implicit surfaces for modeling geological structures has gained a lot of interest. Built-in structural consistency and possibility to integrate intraformational orientation measurements are two features which make this method attractive for structural modeling, especially in poorly constrained settings. However, handling of faults remains difficult for it relies on conformal tetrahedral meshing which is a reputably difficult task. Also, interpolation away from the data is controlled by the minimization of some mathematical criterion which may not always produce structurally sound results. In this paper, we report on our investigations to overcome these limitations. For faults, we propose a new, topologically-driven algorithm, to cut a mesh by an implicit manifold surface of arbitrary topology. Naturally, mesh quality is decreased by this operation, but we propose a tolerance criterion to minimize the number of ill-shaped elements generated during the operation. For structurally meaningful interpolation, we present a new constraint to account for folding orientation and information about dip domains.

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BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Caumon2GM2009,
 abstract = { In recent years, the development of implicit surfaces for modeling geological structures has gained a lot of interest. Built-in structural consistency and possibility to integrate intraformational orientation measurements are two features which make this method attractive for structural modeling, especially in poorly constrained settings. However, handling of faults remains difficult for it relies on conformal tetrahedral meshing which is a reputably difficult task. Also, interpolation away from the data is controlled by the minimization of some mathematical criterion which may not always produce structurally sound results. In this paper, we report on our investigations to overcome these limitations. For faults, we propose a new, topologically-driven algorithm, to cut a mesh by an implicit manifold surface of arbitrary topology. Naturally, mesh quality is decreased by this operation, but we propose a tolerance criterion to minimize the number of ill-shaped elements generated during the operation. For structurally meaningful interpolation, we present a new constraint to account for folding orientation and information about dip domains. },
 author = { Caumon, Guillaume AND Clément, Julien AND Riffault, David AND Antoine, Christophe },
 booktitle = { Proc. 29th Gocad Meeting, Nancy },
 title = { Modeling of geological structures accounting for structural constraints: faults, fold axes and dip domains. },
 year = { 2009 }
}