Three-dimensional structural modeling: Present and future

The modeling of structural evolution are currently upgrading from the two-dimensional to three-dimensional techniques. As a frontier technique, the three-dimensional technique has many advantages in applicability, accuracy, visibility and application, and thus may contribute to structural restoration, stratigraphic correlation, reservoir assessment, hydrocarbon migration and exploration. The present paper deals, in detail, with the history, current states and future development of the three-dimensional technique in the structural modeling. Combined with geometric and geomechanic techniques, the reconstructed geological models are highly accurate, and closely analogous to the real geological bodies. Although some developments have been made in the limited extent of petroleum exploration, a number of problems in the three-dimensional structural modeling remain to be resolved. Future research should be directed to the knotty problems in the three-dimensional structural modeling such as a wider range of application of the three-dimensional technique, displacement caused by the restoration of several faults with different directions of dip, and horizontal rotation of fault blocks in removing the fault throws of the complicated faults in the three-dimensional structural modeling.