Petroleum engineers and earth scientists struggle to merge data sources and technologies to achieve reservoir characterization. To solve this problem, the following state-of-the-art technologies are being retrofitted to the oil industry. Artificial neural networks (ANN＇s) and genetic algorithms (GA＇s) for optimal well design. Adaptive forward/inverse modeling of reservoir fluids away from wellbores. Swept-frequency acoustic interferometry (SFAI) for fluid identification.