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First, whether you are contouring net feet of pay, EUR's, porosity or whatever, draw a zero contour line around your data that is being contoured. Rather than labeling this contour line 0.00, label it with a very small number such as -0.01. Optionally, a second line (-0.10) may be drawn, roughly parallel to the first, to establish the slope of the surface near the zero line.
The value of the second line and the spacing between the two "control" contour lines will influence the slope of the surface in their vicinity, as well as give you much more control over the appearance of the contours in the vicinity of the troublesome "zero."
If you don't include these "control" contours, your software's algorithms will calculate and present irregular zero contours due to the absence of data outside the extents of positive data, and due to the problems that are inherent to gridding zero values. Let's illustrate by example. The first screen shot is a net pay contour map that could be improved. The second screen shot shows the added zero contours. The third screen shot shows a great improvement from the raw, computer-generated contours. Notice the obvious changes to the contour map and the more representative and realistic the map has become. Give that a try and see if that doesn't boost your confidence in using industry computer-generated mapping software.
Back to November 2003 Newsletter
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