Methods and systems for investigating subterranean formations are disclosed. A method for extracting geological horizon on-demand from a 3D seismic data set, comprises collecting 3D seismic data and generating 3D seismic extrema cubes; obtaining a user-defined seed point in the 3D seismic data set; determining a starting extrema point for extracting the geological horizon, wherein the starting extrema point is associated with the seed point; growing an extrema patch consisting of multiple extrema points from multiple traces, wherein the growth begins from the starting extrema point; capturing statistics of the growing extrema patch; and outputting the extrema patch as the geological horizon, including spatial and attribute statistics. The geological horizon is incorporated into a collection with other geological horizons for subsequent analysis and interpretation for areal extent through combining geological horizon segments and geochronologic ordering based on positional overlapping of geological horizon segments.