In this paper we study the potential of symmetry attribute analysis applied to the phase component of electric field observations of marine controlled-source electromagnetic data. The effectiveness of symmetry attribute analysis on the phase component of marine controlled-source electromagnetic data in detecting the boundaries of resistive layer(s), such as hydrocarbon accumulation, is investigated. A comparison between symmetry attribute analysis on the phase and magnitude component of 2.5D synthetic data and a real data set is also discussed. The results presented a clear response indicative of the locations of the subsurface resistors. The phase symmetry attribute analysis proved to be effective for qualitative detection of the lateral extent of embedded resistors
