RJES         

RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 11, ES3008, doi:10.2205/2009ES000375, 2010

Investigation of salt plugs intrusion into Dehnow anticline using image processing and geophysical magnetotelluric methods

Esmaeil Zadeh, A.1, F. Doulati Ardejani1, M. Ziaii1, and M. Mohammado Khorasani2

1Faculty of Mining, Petroleum and Geophysics, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran

2National Iranian Oil Company, Exploration Department, Tehran, Iran


Abstract

This paper attempts to consider the results of a magnetotelluric (MT) geophysical survey and the applicability of image processing method on the TM images of the anticline. The color pixels related to the salt zones have been separated from the other zones from the land surface using image processing method incorporating k-means clustering approach as one of the simplest unsupervised learning algorithms. Field investigations, geological study and the results obtained from the MT survey together with the image processing method identified three salt zones in the study area. These salt zones match well with a decrease in the resistivity of MT data. The application of the proposed method as one of the artificial intelligence technique can be properly used as a cost effective method to identify salt zones from the other areas and preparing a probability map in a regional scale in petroleum exploration.

Received 28 December 2009; accepted 22 January 2010; published 5 March 2010.

Keywords: Magnetotelluric; Dehnow anticline; salt plug; image processing; color pixels; cluster


RJES

Citation: Esmaeil Zadeh, A., F. Doulati Ardejani, M. Ziaii, and M. Mohammado Khorasani (2010), Investigation of salt plugs intrusion into Dehnow anticline using image processing and geophysical magnetotelluric methods, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 11, ES3008, doi:10.2205/2009ES000375.

Copyright 2010 by the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences