isopach

These lines look a bit like the isobars on a weather map, but the lines are isopachs, and the map an isopach map.

In cases where patch reefs are expected, isopach maps would be less useful and the reefs would have to be identified where possible on seismic.

It is also possible to construct facies and isopach maps from logs and using these maps, predictions can be made about the distribution of potential reservoir rocks.

To the north of the Uinta/Cottonwood arch during the Sevier orogeny there was a basement high area gently dipping to the north identified by isopach maps.

TMOS plans to map each such basin seismically in turn, using deep reflection data, geologically calibrated by borehole and outcrop information, to produce depth-contour, isopach and other maps.

Screenshot of an Isopach map generated by reservoir modeling software for an 8500 ft deep oil reservoir 28 ft thick located in the Erath field, Vermilion Parish, Erath, Louisiana.

Thus, an isochore and isopach map are the same only when both the top and bottom surfaces of the layer shown are horizontal (i.e., the true stratigraphic and true vertical thicknesses are the same).

In addition to the mapping programme, the three-dimensional structure of the Upper Palaeozoic basins is to be mapped seismically, using deep reflection data geologically calibrated by borehole and outcrop information to produce depth contour, isopach and other maps.

Unfortunately the terms isopach and isochore are widely confused, and many times maps of True Vertical Thickness (TVT), which by definition are isochore maps, are incorrectly labeled isopach maps.