WheelerLab: An interactive program for sequence stratigraphic analysis of seismic sections, outcrops and well sections and the generation of chronostratigraphic sections and dynamic chronostratigraphic sections

WheelerLab is an interactive program that facilitates the interpretation of stratigraphic data (seismic sections, outcrop data and well sections) within a sequence stratigraphic framework and the subsequent transformation of the data into the chronostratigraphic domain. The transformation enables the identification of significant geological features, particularly erosional and non-depositional features that are not obvious in the original seismic domain. Although there are some software products that contain interactive environments for carrying out chronostratigraphic analysis, none of them are open-source codes. In addition to being open source, WheelerLab adds two important functionalities not present in currently available software: (1) WheelerLab generates a dynamic chronostratigraphic section and (2) WheelerLab enables chronostratigraphic analysis of older seismic data sets that exist only as images and not in the standard seismic file formats; it can also be used for the chronostratigraphic analysis of outcrop images and interpreted well sections. The dynamic chronostratigraphic section sequentially depicts the evolution of the chronostratigraphic chronosomes concurrently with the evolution of identified genetic stratal packages. This facilitates a better communication of the sequence-stratigraphic process. WheelerLab is designed to give the user both interactive and interpretational control over the transformation; this is most useful when determining the correct stratigraphic order for laterally separated genetic stratal packages. The program can also be used to generate synthetic sequence stratigraphic sections for chronostratigraphic analysis.