Electrical and hydraulic conductivities in the reservoir environment can vary over many orders of magnitude over very small distances, while human vision is limited to perception of a Cartesian space in which the perceptual scales in all directions are commensurate. This means that visual plots of electrical or hydraulic conductivity variations with respect to a spatial coordinate must plot the logarithm of the data versus one or more spatial coordinates. This traditional visualization scheme, which is facilitated by the contemporary use of graphical workstations, exchanges precision for ease of data presentation, since the logarithmic mapping smoothes the data. This may be a good thing if gross earth structures are targeted, but it can be counterproductive if truly high-resolution mapping of the earth is desired. Since the frequency and amplitude dynamic range of the human ear is many orders of magnitude, alternative sonic data presentations preserve the true scale of the data. In these presentations, traditional log strip charts serve as visual "scores" while a "sonification" presents the data in auditory, or "musical", form. There are many natural maps of conductivity data into sound realizations, with a wide range of possible timbres and ensembles possible for correlating large data sets. These maps have natural extensions to fractal conductivity distributions. A trial piano sonification of induction well-log data, presented for your listening pleasure, maintains the scale of the induction data and presents the information in listenable form, reminiscent of some contemporary composed music.

We conjecture that with the increasing availability of inexpensive electronic synthesizers, true multi-media capabilities, and virtual reality work-stations, that all geophysical data will be mapped to many dimensional perceptual media which best preserve their true geometric scales. In the case of reservoir distributions of electrical and hydraulic conductivities, the "pure" presentation media will be sound, perhaps with an accompanying score for those who sight read. We further conjecture that the linguistic and musical aptitude of humans for detecting and remembering structure in sound strings will lead to increased precision in reservoir description and analysis.

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