1

An oil and gas prospecting method for predicting connectedness between parts of a potential hydrocarbon reservoir identified in a geophysical data volume corresponding to a subsurface region, comprising:obtaining a plurality of data elements, respectively corresponding to three-dimensional locations in the subsurface region, and generating a data volume consisting of discrete cells from the plurality of data elements;

identifying an initial geobody corresponding to a potential hydrocarbon reservoir within the data volume by grouping cells in the data volume according to a selected connectivity criterion;

selecting a rule that characterizes stratigraphically reasonable geobodies;

in response to a determination that the initial geobody does not conform to the rule, segmenting the initial geobody into a plurality of fundamental geobodies via processing the data elements with an automated segmentation routine, wherein the fundamental geobodies each conform to the rule; and

using the fundamental geobodies to predict connectedness between parts of the potential hydrocarbon reservoir.

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2

The method of Claim 1, wherein the geophysical data are seismic data or seismic attribute data.

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3

The method of Claim 1, further comprising after a determination that the initial geobody does not conform to the rule but before segmenting: selecting a threshold considered to approximate noise levels in the data, then identifying the cells that are responsible for the initial geobody's nonconformance to the selected rule, then adjusting the initial geobody by removing any such cells having data values below the selected noise-related threshold, then repeating the determination of whether the initial geobody, after said adjustment, conforms to the rule.

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4

The method of Claim 1, wherein the rule is a lateral bifurcation criterion, whereby a criterion is selected limiting geobody branching in a horizontal dimension.

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5

The method of Claim 1, wherein the rule is a law of superposition, limiting the extent to which a geobody may overlap itself in the vertical dimension, wherein two cells in a geobody are considered to overlap if they have the same horizontal coordinates and are separated vertically by at least one cell not in the geobody.

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6

The method of Claim 5, wherein the automated segmentation routine uses a shortest path search algorithm.

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7

The method of Claim 6, wherein segmenting the initial geobody into a plurality of fundamental geobodies comprises:(i) identifying all zones of overlapping cells within the initial geobody;

(ii) identifying all cells within the potential geobody where overlap is generated by vertical branching, and designating such cells as barrier cells for shortest path searches in subsequent steps;

(iii) for each pair of cells lying one each in overlapping zones, using a shortest path search algorithm to find the shortest path between the pair of cells, and finding the cell of steepest slope for each shortest path and designating it as a barrier cell;

(iv) repeating step (iii), observing barrier cells, until there are no longer any paths between any overlapping zones; and

(v) segmenting the initial geobody into two or more fundamental geobodies using the designated barrier cells as boundaries.

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8

The method of Claim 6, wherein the shortest path search algorithm is the A* algorithm.

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9

The method of Claim 5, wherein the automated segmentation routine uses a 3D network of boundaries developed by performing statistical clustering analysis on the initial geobody.

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10

The method of Claim 9, wherein the automated segmentation routine uses a shortest path search algorithm to find shortest paths between pairs of at least partially overlapping clusters within the initial geobody.

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