Automatic classification of planktonic foraminifera by a knowledge-based system

The identification of foraminifera is an important task in oil exploration. However, this task is tedious and time-consuming. In this work, a knowledge-based system is developed for the identification of planktonic foraminifera. The identification process is made automatic by means of computer vision techniques. Currently, the knowledge-based system, though just being a prototype in this stage of its development, is able to identify several important species of planktonic foraminifera based on the parameters obtained by the image analysis algorithms. An overview of our method and the main components of the knowledge-based system are discussed.<>