Topological Analysis in Monte Carlo Simulation for Uncertainty Estimation
Abstract. This paper proposes and demonstrates improvements for the Monte Carlo simulation for Uncertainty Estimation (MCUE) method. MCUE is a type of Bayesian Monte Carlo aimed at input data uncertainty propagation in implicit 3D geological modeling. In the Monte Carlo process, a series of statistically plausible models are built from the input data set which uncertainty is to be propagated to a final probabilistic geological model (PGM) or uncertainty index model (UIM). Significant differences in terms of topology are observed in the plausible model suite that is generated as an intermediary step in MCUE. These differences are interpreted as analogous to population heterogeneity. The source of this heterogeneity is traced to be the non-linear relationship between plausible datasets’ variability and plausible model’s variability. Non-linearity is shown to arise from the effect of the geometrical ruleset on model building which transforms lithological continuous interfaces into discontinuous piecewise ones. Plausible model heterogeneity induces geological incompatibility and challenges the underlying assumption of homogeneity which global uncertainty estimates rely on. To address this issue, a method for topological analysis applied to the plausible model suite in MCUE is introduced. Boolean topological signatures recording lithological units’ adjacency are used as n-dimensional points to be considered individually or clustered using the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm. The proposed method is tested on two challenging synthetic examples with varying levels of confidence in the structural input data. Results indicate that topological signatures constitute a powerful discriminant to address plausible model heterogeneity. Basic topological signatures appear to be a reliable indicator of the structural behavior of the plausible models and provide useful geological insights. Moreover, ignoring heterogeneity was found to be detrimental to the accuracy and relevance of the PGMs and UIMs.