Assessing Uncertainties in Balanced Cross Sections

平衡剖面最先由石油和天然气行业开发和广泛部署，以提高加拿大落基山脉等山区勘探工作的成功率。尽管在学术界和工业界广泛使用了50年，但还没有人提出正式的方法来评估这些部分的不确定性。在这个项目中，研究人员将通过开发第一个普遍适用的方法来弥补这一缺点，通过计算传播误差，从而从平衡剖面得到水平缩短估计。如果没有这些不确定性估计，就不可能预测平衡剖面模型的可靠性，无论是学术界还是业界实践者所建议的。调查人员将使用面积平衡方法来开发正式的误差传播方法，该方法的优点是它涵盖了所有可能的结构模型，包括很少纳入的因素，如地层厚度变化和剖面分辨率以下的缩短机制，并且可以通过解析实现，从而消除了在同一区域绘制大量剖面的需要。在加拿大落基山脉和台湾的冲断带上测试该方法，将使该研究小组能够探索地层变化以及运动学风格对这些标志性平衡横断面的不确定程度的影响。

Balanced cross sections were first developed and widely deployed by the oil and gas industry to improve the success of exploration efforts in mountain belts such as the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Despite five decades of widespread use in both academia and industry, no formal method for assessing the uncertainty in these sections has ever been proposed. In this project, the investigators will remedy this shortcoming by developing the first generally applicable method to propagate errors through the calculation that leads to horizontal shortening estimates from balanced sections. Without these uncertainty estimates, it is impossible to predict the reliability, as suggested by either academic or industry practitioners, of balanced section models.The investigators will develop formal error propagation using an area balance approach, which has the advantages that it encompasses all possible structural models, includes seldom incorporated factors such as stratigraphic thickness variation and shortening mechanisms below the resolution of the section, and can be achieved analytically, obviating the need to draw a large number of sections in the same region. Testing of the method on thrust belts in the Canadian Rockies and Taiwan will allow this research group to explore the effect of stratigraphic variations as well as kinematic styles on the degree of uncertainty in these iconic balanced cross sections.