Methods and systems for identifying a clathrate deposit

A system of identifying a clathrate deposit in a subsurface from seismic data, the system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory communicatively connected to the processor, the memory storing computer-executable instructions which, when executed, cause the processor to perform:
• generating a land surface or sea floor digital image from post-stack seismic data;
• determining a clathrate stability zone from the land surface or sea floor digital image;
• generating a laterally extensive subsurface digital image from the seismic data that is within or below the clathrate stability zone;
• filtering the laterally extensive subsurface digital image to generate a pull-up digital image;
• generating a coarse-grained sediment digital image from the seismic data within the clathrate stability zone;
• spatially superimposing the coarse-grained sediment digital image and the pull-up digital image to generate a combined digital image;
• and
• determining an overlap region from the combined digital image where the pull-up digital image and the coarse-grained sediment digital image overlap, wherein the overlap region is indicative of a clathrate deposit.

A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a method of identifying a clathrate deposit in a subsurface from seismic data, the method comprising:

• generating a land surface or sea floor digital image from post-stack seismic data;
• determining a clathrate stability zone from the land surface or sea floor digital image;
• generating a laterally extensive subsurface digital image from the seismic data that is within or below the clathrate stability zone;
• filtering the laterally extensive subsurface digital image to generate a pull-up digital image;
• generating a coarse-grained sediment digital image from the seismic data within the clathrate stability zone;
• spatially superimposing the coarse-grained sediment digital image and the pull-up digital image to generate a combined digital image;
• and
• determining an overlap region from the combined digital image where the pull-up digital image and the coarse-grained sediment digital image overlap, wherein the overlap region is indicative of a clathrate deposit.

A method of producing hydrocarbons, the method comprising:

• obtaining post-stack seismic data;
• obtaining an overlap region from a combined digital image, where the overlap region is indicative of a clathrate deposit, and where the combined digital image is produced by steps comprising:
• generating a land surface or seafloor digital image from the post-stack seismic image;
• determining a clathrate stability zone from the land surface of sea floor digital image;
• generating a laterally extensive subsurface digital image from the seismic data that is within or below the clathrate stability zone;
• filtering the laterally extensive subsurface digital image to generate a pull-up digital image;
• generating a coarse-grained sediment digital image from the seismic data within the clathrate stability zone;
• spatially superimposing the coarse-grained sediment digital image and the pull-up digital image to generate a combined digital image;
• and
• determining the overlap region from the combined digital image where the pull-up digital image and the coarse-grained sediment digital image overlap;
• and
• making a decision regarding a wellbore location based on the identified clathrate deposit, drilling a wellbore at the wellbore location, and producing the hydrocarbons via the wellbore.