Abstract: The prediction of lateral hydrocarbon variation by seismic data and a few key wells is an important project in petroleum exploration and development.In this paper,the idea of fractional seismic reservoir analysis is presented in the light of the fractal characteristics of geological variables.Then based on the two-dimensional fractional Brownian motion,a method of fractal hydrocarbon recognition is proposed and it has been successfully used in the lateral hydrocarbon prediction of a certain oil field.