Detailed Record



Attention mechanism‐assisted recurrent neural network for well log lithology classification


Abstract Lithology classification is a fundamental aspect of reservoir classification. Due to the limited availability of core samples, computational modelling methods for lithology classification based on indirect measurements are required. The main challenge for standard clustering methods is the complex vertical dependency of sedimentological sequences as well as the spatial coupling of well logs. Machine learning methods, such as recurrent neural networks, long short‐term memory and bidirectional long short‐term memory, can account for the spatial correlation of the measured data and the predicted model. Based on these developments, we propose a novel approach using two distinct models: a self‐attention‐assisted bidirectional long short‐term memory model and a multi‐head attention‐based bidirectional long short‐term memory model. These models consider spatial continuity and adaptively adjust the weight in each step to improve the classification using the attention mechanism. The proposed method is tested on a set of real well logs with limited training data obtained from core samples. The prediction results from the proposed models and the benchmark one are compared in terms of the accuracy of lithology classification. Additionally, the weight matrices from both attention mechanisms are visualized to elucidate the correlations between depth steps and to help analyse how these mechanisms contribute to improved prediction accuracy. The study shows that the proposed multi‐head attention‐based bidirectional long short‐term memory model improves classification, especially for thin layers.
Authors Yining Gao University of WyomingORCID , Miao Tian ORCID , Darío Graña University of WyomingORCID , Zhaohui Xu ORCID , Huaimin Xu ORCID
Journal Info Wiley | Geophysical Prospecting
Publication Date 10/13/2024
ISSN 0016-8025
TypeKeyword Image article
Open Access bronze Bronze Access
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2478.13618
KeywordsKeyword Image Lithology (Score: 0.65048933) , Economic geology (Score: 0.4790686)