SEGJ Technical Conference


Evaluation and decision making from geophysical results with uncertainty


Abstract
Geophysical results essentially include uncertainty associated with various factors, e.g. S/N in a measurement, non-uniqueness of a solution in an inversion, and nature of complex underground. It sometimes leads people to feel that the geophysics is unreliable. This situation might be come from wrong explanations by geophysicists. Not only disclosing variations of the geophysical results but also providing probability in the final evaluation is important for convincing people. Here, I show some examples of deriving a posterior probability to evaluate geophysical results with uncertainty using Bayes theorem and VOI (Value of Information). VOI supports making a decision with geophysical results with uncertainty. We cannot eliminate uncertainty from the geophysical result