mechanical properties of shale gas reservoir rocks part 1 static and dynamic elastic properties and anisotropy abstractunderstanding the controls on the elastic properties of reservoir rocks is crucial for exploration and successful production from hydrocarbon reservoirs we studied the static and dynamic elastic properties of shale gas reservoir rocks from barnett haynesville eagle ford and fort st john shales through laboratory experiments the elastic properties of these rocks vary significantly between reservoirs and within a reservoir due to the wide variety of material composition and microstructures exhibited by these organic rich shales the static young s modulus and dynamic p and s wave moduli elastic parameters generally decrease monotonically with the clay plus kerogen content the variation of the elastic moduli can be explained in terms of the voigt and reuss limits predicted by end member components however the elastic properties of the shales are strongly anisotropic and the degree of anisotropy was found to correlate with the amount of clay and organic content as well as the shale fab

ultrasonic velocity and anisotropy of hydrocarbon source rocks an experimental study of the physical properties of black kerogen rich shales also including maturation analysis scanning electron microscope sem observations and physical modeling revealed fairly peculiar petrophysical parameters specifically these rocks have very low porosity and density but most importantly both p and s ultrasonic velocities normal to bedding are extremely low whereas they are much higher parallel to bedding giving rise to a strong anisotropy even at high confining pressures we found that these parameters primarily reflect kerogen content microstructure and maturation level of these rocks we found also that microcracks inferred from ultrasonic velocity measurements occur only in mature shales these microcracks are parallel to the bedding plane and further enhance strong intrinsic anisotropy notably at low effective pressure our results show that on a small scale kerogen rich shales are transversely isotropic rocks and can be effectively modeled using the thin laye

the early toarcian and cenomanian turonian anoxic events in europe comparisons and contrasts two intervals of mesozoic time are demonstrably of sufficient geological brevity to qualify readily for the term anoxic event the earlyfalciferum zone orexaratum subzone of the toarcian and thewhiteinella archaeocretacea interval zone that straddles the cenomanian turonian boundary both periods of time saw regional deposition of anomalously organic rich strata black shales accompanied by a positive 2 pdb carbon isotope excursion in coeval biogenic carbonates and significant faunal change the duration of both events was probably less than half a million years and both were preceded by regional erosion and possible upwelling coincident sea level rise and transgression is likely a european view of these events however spotlights some significant differences whereas thefalciferum zone organic matter is generally more concentrated and more hydrogen rich on the palaeo european shelf than on the tethyan continental margins the reverse holds true for the black shales formed during thewhiteinella archaeocretacea interval zone furthermore the carbon isotope composition offalciferum zone organic matter from both north european and tethyan sites is anomalously negative compared to that developed in thewhiteinella archaeocretacea interval zone differing planktonic organisms may have been involved and their possible diverse ecological requirements may go some way to explaining the nature and distribution of facies deposited during these two events

radioactive disequilibria in mineralised fracture samples from two uranium occurrences in northern sweden abstract mineralised fractures from two uranium occurrences in northern sweden were examined mineralogically and isotopically to establish the presence or absence of radioactive equilibrium that may indicate recent rock water interaction processes based on the natural mobility of uranium i e during the last 0 5 ma the results show evidence of radioactive disequilibrium in six of the nine samples investigated disequilibria are attributable to solution to solid 234 u recoil gain weakly mineralised zones adjacent to the main mineralisation and solid to solution 234 u recoil loss moderate to highly mineralised zones the absence of significant 238 u loss in the samples emphasises the reducing conditions at the sampled depths

geologic factors controlling co2 storage capacity and permanence case studies based on experience with heterogeneity in oil and gas reservoirs applied to co2 storage a variety of structural and stratigraphic factors control geological heterogeneity inferred to influence both sequestration capacity and effectiveness as well as seal capacity structural heterogeneity factors include faults folds and fracture intensity stratigraphic heterogeneity is primarily controlled by the geometry of depositional facies and sandbody continuity which controls permeability structure the permeability structure in turn has implications for co2 injectivity and near term migration pathways whereas the long term sequestration capacity can be inferred from the production history examples of gulf coast oil and gas reservoirs with differing styles of stratigraphic heterogeneity demonstrate the impact of facies variability on fluid flow and co2 sequestration potential beach and barrier island deposits in west ranch field in southeast texas are homogeneous and continuous in contrast seeligson and stratton fields in south texas examples of major heterogeneity in fluvial systems are composed of discontinuous channel fill sandstones confined to narrow sinuous belts these heterogeneous deposits contain limited compartments for potential co2 storage although co2 sequestration effectiveness may be enhanced by the high number of intraformational shale beds these field examples demonstrate that areas for co2 storage can be optimized by assessing sites for enhanced oil and gas recovery in mature hydrocarbon provinces

relationships between the petrographic physical and mechanical characteristics of sedimentary rocks in jurassic weakly cemented strata physical and petrographic properties of sedimentary rocks have great influence on their mechanical behavior numerous laboratory tests were conducted on intact sandstones and mudstones obtained from jurassic weakly cemented coal bearing strata several physical and mechanical parameters particularly the rock material constant mi and the brittleness coefficient brit t were determined the microfabric of these sedimentary rocks was also analyzed to quantify their mineral compositions and to determine quantitative relationships among mineral compositions physical and mechanical parameters using the regression analysis overall both bulk density and p wave velocity vp exhibit positive power relationships with uniaxial compressive strength ucs and young s modulus e respectively the ucs of sandstones increases with increasing quartz content and decreasing feldspar content and the brittleness of mudstones increases with the increase of quartz and feldspar contents in addition the rock material constant mi presents a logarithmic correlation with the ratio of feldspar to quartz content for sandstones and a polynomial correlation with the ratio of clay minerals to the quartz and feldspar contents for mudstones

impact of fabric microcracks and stress field on shale anisotropy summary few data are available on shales in terms of seismic to ultrasonic properties and anisotropy although all are important with regards to imaging problems often encountered in such lithologies additionally mechanisms causing changes in these properties are not well documented due to the fine grain size of such materials and time required for testing under controlled pore pressure conditions the results presented here are derived from a set of experiments run on muderong shale with pore pressure control in order to evaluate the effect of stress magnitude and stress anisotropy on ultrasonic response this shale was noted to have a linear velocitymean effective stress response and extremely high anisotropy both likely the result of the presence of fluid filled cracks in a low permeability porous medium changes in velocity and vp vs ratios are dependent on both stress and smectite content s wave velocity is significantly affected by the presence of smectite in this and other shales and at low stress 20 mpa is less sensitive to stress change than p wave velocity vp vs ratios are noted to increase in this shale up to 20 mpa effective stress then decrease slightly due to stress induced loss of interlayer water in smectite intrinsic anisotropy comes from composition a strong compaction fabric and the presence of microfractures changes to ultrasonic anisotropy are the result of the magnitude of the stresses their orientation with respect to the fractures and the degree of stress anisotropy

chemostratigraphy of the posidonia black shale sw germany i influence of sea level variation on organic facies evolution abstract during the toarcian widespread deposition of organic rich mudrocks black shales occurred across europe linked to a 3rd order sea level rise we provide a high resolution multi proxy chemostratigraphic study of the dotternhausen sections in sw germany embedded in a stratigraphic and palecological framework chemostratigraphy and paleoenvironmental reconstruction is based on rock eval and elemental analysis of bulk organic matter and biomarker analysis of aliphatic hydrocarbon fractions aliphatic biomarker ratios applied to reconstruct the facies development include pristane phytane and pristane phytane n c 17 n c 18 ratios carbon preference index c 27 c 29 sterane and hopane sterane distribution results show that sea level change exerted the major control on the composition of primary produced organic matter and on its redox controlled preservation changes in primary production and in the ratio of terrestrially versus marine derived organic matter take place drastically at the onset of black shale deposition the relative proportion of terrestrial versus marine biomass accumulation is independently assessed by highly correlative bulk organic matter properties hi values and biomarker ratios cpi the terrestrially derived end member yields hi values of 50 100 mg hc toc and cpi values of 1 4 2 0 whereas the marine end member has hi values of 600 700 mg hc toc and cpi values of 0 95 1 05 correspondingly the shift in plant versus bacteria derived biomass is discriminated by hi values and hopane sterane ratios data were grouped according to their position in the lowstand lst lower and upper transgressive tst highstand systems tract hst and maximum flooding surface mfz of the sequence stratigraphic framework occurrence of organic matter with a significant bacterial contribution is restricted to the lst and lowermost tst and shows hopane sterane ratios of 0 25 0 5 marine phytoplanktonic matter dominates the upper tst hst and mfz with organic matter giving hopane sterane ratios between 0 5 and 1 7 samples from the hst yield hi values between 450 and 500 mg hc toc which is consistently lower by 150 mg hc toc when compared to the tst the lower quality of the organic matter deposited in the hst is due to its longer settling times through a thicker oxygenated water column a strong correlation with relative sea level stand and the c 27 c 29 sterane ratio is observed lst exhibits c 27 c 29 sterane ratios of 0 7 during transgression values increase to 1 0 reaching a maximum at 1 4 during sea level highstand thus reflecting decreasing terrigenous input and shifts in near shore versus open marine algal communities episodic fluctuation of anoxia is discussed on the basis of a monsoonal climate model which infers significant surface run off during summer monsoon providing high nutrient supply and associated high primary productivity in combination with a density stratified water column excellent preservation conditions for organic matter were established dry winter conditions with inversion of the surface water flow regime led to seasonal export of bottom waters and episodic establishment of dysoxic conditions variations in the extent of annual flushing of sub basins on the toarcian shelf controlled long term organic matter accumulation rate paleoclimate variability and its connection with sea level stand is thus of paramount importance for different modes of organic matter accumulation and redox system stability

unconventional shale gas systems the mississippian barnett shale of north central texas as one model for thermogenic shale gas assessment shale gas resource plays can be distinguished by gas type and system characteristics the newark east gas field located in the fort worth basin texas is defined by thermogenic gas production from low porosity and low permeability barnett shale the barnett shale gas system a self contained source reservoir system has generated large amounts of gas in the key productive areas because of various characteristics and processes including 1 excellent original organic richness and generation potential 2 primary and secondary cracking of kerogen and retained oil respectively 3 retention of oil for cracking to gas by adsorption 4 porosity resulting from organic matter decomposition and 5 brittle mineralogical composition the calculated total gas in place gip based on estimated ultimate recovery that is based on production profiles and operator estimates is about 204 bcf section 5 78 10 9 m 3 1 73 10 4 m 3 we estimate that the barnett shale has a total generation potential of about 609 bbl of oil equivalent ac ft or the equivalent of 3657 mcf ac ft 84 0 m 3 m 3 assuming a thickness of 350 ft 107 m and only sufficient hydrogen for partial cracking of retained oil to gas a total generation potential of 820 bcf section is estimated of this potential approximately 60 was expelled and the balance was retained for secondary cracking of oil to gas if sufficient thermal maturity was reached gas storage capacity of the barnett shale at typical reservoir pressure volume and temperature conditions and 6 porosity shows a maximum storage capacity of 540 mcf ac ft or 159 scf ton

effective stress coefficient in shales and its applicability to eaton s equation pore pressure within formations determines the mud weight required to build a balancing fluid pressure downhole an improper understanding of the subsurface geology and the formation pressures may result in fracturing the formation if the mud weight is too high in contrast if mud weight is too low then formation fluids can flow into the well potentially leading to well blowouts if not controlled complex geological settings make pore pressure prediction difficult and often inaccurate due to uncertainty in pressure generating mechanisms estimation of proper pore pressures is necessary for designing stable holes and an optimized casing program in exploration knowledge of pore pressures can assist in assessing seal effectiveness and in high grading reservoir sweet spots it also provides useful calibration information for basin modeling hence it becomes very important to accurately predict pore pressures

bib sem characterization of pore space morphology and distribution in postmature to overmature samples from the haynesville and bossier shales abstract four haynesville shale and four bossier shale samples were investigated using a combination of scanning electron microscopy sem and broad ion beam bib polishing this approach enables the microstructure and porosity to be studied down to the mesopore size r in the haynesville shale to 1 79 2 26 vr r in the bossier shale this variety within the samples enabled us to study controls on the porosity distribution in these shales visible pores exist as intraparticle pores mainly in carbonate grains and pyrite framboids and as interparticle pores mainly in the clay rich matrix pores in organic matter show a characteristic porosity with respect to the type of organic matter which mainly consists of mixtures of amorphous organic matter and minerals organic laminae and discrete macerals a clear positive trend of organic matter porosity with maturity was found pore sizes are power law distributed in the range of 4 4 m to at least 36 nm in equivalent diameter the differences in power law exponents suggest that a more grain supported coarse grained matrix may prevent pores from mechanical compaction porosities measured in the bib cross sections were significantly lower in comparison to porosities obtained by mercury intrusion porosimetry mip this difference is mainly attributed to the different resolution achieved with bib sem and mip and type of pore network extrapolation of pore size distributions psds enables the bib sem porosity to be estimated down to the resolution of the mip and thus to upscale microstructural observation at the confined space of the bib sem method to bulk porosity measurement these inferred porosities are in good agreement with the mip determined porosities which underpins the assumption that pores segmented in bib sem mosaics are representative of the mip methodology

the validity of generic trends on multiple scales in rock physical and rock mechanical properties of the whitby mudstone united kingdom abstract finding generic trends in mechanical and physical rock properties will help to make predictions of the rock mechanical behaviour of shales understanding the rock mechanical behaviour of shales is important for the successful development of unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs this paper presents the effect of heterogeneities in mineralogy and petrophysical properties on the validity of generic trends on multiple scales in rock mechanical and rock physical properties of the whitby mudstone rock mechanical laboratory experiments have been performed on whitby mudstone samples from multiple outcrops within five kilometres laterally in order to investigate the heterogeneity and possible trends on an outcrop scale unconfined compression tests and acoustic measurements have been conducted to obtain the rock mechanical properties including rock strength young s modulus poisson s ratio and velocity anisotropy the rock physical properties including mineralogy porosity and matrix density were measured using x ray fluorescence and helium pycnometry various methodologies have been applied to the resultant data in order to derive different brittleness indices significant heterogeneity in rock mechanical and rock physical properties is present on an outcrop scale there is no obvious correlation between mineral content and rock mechanical properties on an outcrop scale in the whitby mudstone comparison with shales from different basins show however correlations between composition and elastic properties the presence of significant heterogeneities on an outcrop scale and between shales from different basins make it difficult to find generic trends in rock physical and rock mechanical properties

microstructural characteristics of the whitby mudstone formation uk when trying to improve gas productivity from unconventional sources a first aim is to understand gas storage and gas flow potential through the rock by investigating the microstructure mineralogy and matrix porosity of unfractured shale the porosity and mineralogy of the mulgrave shale member of the whitby mudstone formation uk were characterized using a combination of microscopy x ray diffraction and gas adsorption methods on samples collected from outcrops the whitby mudstone is an analogue for the dutch posidonia shale which is a possible unconventional source for gas the mulgrave shale member of the whitby mudstone formation can microstructurally be subdivided into a fossil rich 15 upper half and a sub mm mineralogically laminated lower half all clasts are embedded within a fine grained matrix all grains 100 nm is in the order of 0 5 2 5 and shows a non connected pore network in 2d gas adsorption n2 ar he porosity pore diameters down to 2 nm has been measured to be 0 3 7 overall more than 40 of the visible porosity is present within the matrix comparing the whitby mudstone formation to other producing gas shales shows that the rock plots in the low porosity and high clay mineral content range which could imply that whitby mudstone shales could be less favourable to mechanical fracturing than other gas shales estimated permeability indicates values in the micro to nano darcy range

emerging methodologies to characterize the rock physics properties of organic rich shales the high price of conventional oil and the ensuing focus on the security of hydrocarbon supplies is a clear signal for broader uses of unconventional sources of oil and gas organic rich shales represent an enormous potential unconventional resource the u s energy information administration eia estimates the world supply of oil shale at 2 6 trillion barrels of recoverable oil the u s owns by far the largest amount 1 1 2 trillion barrels mainly near the common borders of wyoming utah and colorado where much of the resource occurs at a saturation of about 10 by weight in layers that are 30 300 m thick national petroleum council 2007

massive dissociation of gas hydrate during a jurassic oceanic anoxic event in the jurassic period the early toarcian oceanic anoxic event about 183 million years ago is associated with exceptionally high rates of organic carbon burial high palaeotemperatures and significant mass extinction heavy carbon isotope compositions in rocks and fossils of this age have been linked to the global burial of organic carbon which is isotopically light in contrast examples of light carbon isotope values from marine organic matter of early toarcian age have been explained principally in terms of localized upwelling of bottom water enriched in 12c versus 13c refs 1 2 5 6 here however we report carbon isotope analyses of fossil wood which demonstrate that isotopically light carbon dominated all the upper oceanic biospheric and atmospheric carbon reservoirs and that this occurred despite the enhanced burial of organic carbon we propose that as has been suggested for the late palaeocene thermal maximum some 55 million years ago the observed patterns were produced by voluminous and extremely rapid release of methane from gas hydrate contained in marine continental margin sediments

elastic anisotropy of shales accompanying the resource potential of gas shales is a new interest in understanding the physical and petrophysical properties of shales shale by geochemical or stratigraphic measures is arguably the most common lithology encountered in sedimentary basins despite this shales remain little studied while engineers and explorationists focused on conventional reservoirs geophysicists did this knowing full well that often a reflection coefficient from a reservoir was controlled by the shale properties of the cap rock we compensated for this ignorance by arguing that shales are deposited in deepwater environments in which lateral and vertical changes are slow and therefore inconsequential we further compounded this ignorance by assuming that the shales were isotropic an example of the consequences of this ignorance was clearly documented by margesson and sondergeld 1999 engineers share culpability for this ignorance too since most of the drilling problems occur in shales and most of the lithologies d

ultrasonic velocity and attenuation anisotropy of shales whitby united kingdom we have conducted ultrasonic experiments between 0 3 and 1 mhz to measure velocity and attenuation q 1 anisotropy of p and s waves in dry whitby mudstone samples as a function of stress we found the degree of anisotropy to be as large as 70 for velocity and attenuation the sensitivity of p wave anisotropy change with applied stress is more conspicuous than for s waves the closure of large aspect ratio pores and or micro cracks seems to be a dominant mechanism controlling the change of anisotropy generally the highest attenuation is perceived for samples that have their bed layering perpendicular 90 to the wave path the observed attenuation in the samples is partly due to the scattering on the different layers and it is partly due to the intrinsic attenuation changes in attenuation due to crack closure during the loading stage of the experiment are an indication of the intrinsic attenuation the remaining attenuation can then be attributed to the layer scattering finally the changes in attenuation anisotropy with applied stress are more dynamic with respect to changes in velocity anisotropy supporting the validity of a higher sensitivity of attenuation to rock property changes

re os dating of molybdenite within hematite breccias from the vulcan cu au prospect olympic cu au province south australia the vulcan prospect is a newly discovered cu au prospect located within the eastern gawler craton south australia the prospect is entirely subsurface and defined by a geophysical anomaly intersected by diamond drilling eight drill holes have all intersected hematite rich alteration and cu au mineralization within a variety of breccia types ranging from those composed entirely of hydrothermal hematite sericite chlorite to those dominated by altered rock in which clasts of protolith rock are preserved the highest grade zones of mineralization at vulcan occur within hematite dominant breccias molybdenite within hematite rich brecciated granite samples has been dated via the re os method and yields a crystallization age of 1586 8 ma including decay constant uncertainties shrimp zircon u pb analyses show that a sample of hematite sericite chlorite altered and brecciated granite was emplaced at 1743 7 ma the new data from vulcan confirm that hematite breccia related cu au mineralization formed during a widespread alteration and mineralization event between ca 1600 and 1570 ma broadly coeval with the voluminous felsic large igneous province of the gawler range volcanics hiltaba suite and are consistent with most interpretations of the geology of the olympic cu au province

microstructures of early jurassic toarcian shales of northern europe the toarcian early jurassic posidonia shale formation is a possible unconventional gas source in northern europe and occurs within the cleveland basin united kingdom the anglo paris basin france the lower saxony basin and the southwest germany basin germany and the roer valley graben the west netherlands basin broad fourteens basin the central netherlands basin and the dutch central graben in the netherlands outcrops can be found in the united kingdom and germany since the posidonia shale formation does not outcrop in the netherlands sample material suitable for experimental studies is not easily available here we have investigated lateral equivalent shale samples from six different locations across northern europe germany the netherlands the north sea and united kingdom to compare the microstructure and composition of toarcian shales the objective is to determine how homogeneous or heterogeneous the shale deposits are across the basins using a combination of ion beam polishing scanning electron microscopy and x ray diffraction the work presented here shows that the toarcian shales of northern europe display considerable homogeneity in mineralogy and microstructure in the different investigated samples and formations where the largest variability is the carbonate content ranging from almost zero up to 80 we conclude that the outcrop locations in germany and the united kingdom are suitable analogues with respect to their mineralogy and microstructure for experimental studies on the posidonia shale in the dutch subsurface 2016 the authors

seismic anisotropy of shales the seismic properties and preferred clay mineral orientation of a suite of shales are investigated using laboratory velocity measurements as a function of confining pressure x ray diffraction techniques and electron microprobe backscatter bse imaging the velocity measurements indicate that these shales are transversely isotropic with the main symmetry axis perpendicular to bedding anisotropy at elevated pressures caused mainly by preferred orientation of clays illite parallel to bedding ranges from 20 vp and 19 vs for a sample of new albany shale to 30 vp and 35 vs for a sample of chattanooga shale the degree of clay mineral alignment in the shales is constrained by orientation indices produced using simple x ray diffraction techniques a strong positive correlation is found between the degree of preferred orientation as expressed in the orientation indices and seismic anisotropy bse images of the shale fabrics confirm in a qualitative manner the results of the x ray study to investigate wave propagation in the shales elastic constants of each sample are calculated and used to produce phase and group wave velocity surfaces which describe variation in velocity as a function of angle to the bedding normal the calculated velocity surfaces constrained by independent velocity measurements display a lack of shear wave splitting at near normal incidence in even the most anisotropic shales for the highly anisotropic chattanooga shales group velocity surfaces differ significantly from corresponding phase velocity surfaces

experimental study of fluid transport processes in the matrix system of the european organic rich shales ii posidonia shale lower toarcian northern germany abstract a laboratory study has been conducted to investigate the transport of gases he ar ch 4 and water in the matrix of lower toarcian posidonia shale samples from three shallow boreholes in northern germany the maturity of the organic matter of the shale samples ranged between 0 53 and 1 45 vitrinite reflectance vr r the measurements were performed at effective stresses ranging between 6 and 37 mpa and a temperature of 45 c the effects of different controlling factors including permeating fluid maturity anisotropy moisture content and effective stress on the fluid conductivity were analyzed and discussed permeability coefficients measured perpendicular and parallel to bedding 3 10 22 to 9 7 10 17 m 2 were within the range previously reported for other shales and mudstones they exhibited a strong dependence on permeating fluid maturity anisotropy moisture content and effective stress the permeability coefficients measured with helium as permeate were consistently higher up to two times than those measured with argon and methane permeability coefficients measured with water were up to three orders of magnitude lower than klinkenberg corrected gas permeability coefficients measured with helium and methane under similar experimental conditions among the samples studied the lowest porosity and permeability coefficients were measured on samples of intermediate thermal maturity 0 88 vr r oil window permeability coefficients he ch 4 measured parallel to bedding were up to more than one order of magnitude higher than those measured perpendicular to bedding permeability coefficients measured with he and ch 4 on a dry sample were up to two times higher than those measured on a sample with the as received moisture content all samples showed a nonlinear reduction in permeability parallel to bedding with increasing effective stress 6 37 mpa the permeability anisotropy and stress dependence of permeability were controlled by the mineralogy

evolution of porosity and pore types in organic rich calcareous lower toarcian posidonia shale low and high resolution petrographic studies have been combined with mineralogical toc rockeval and porosity data to investigate controls on the evolution of porosity in stratigraphically equivalent immature oil window and gas window samples from the lower toarcian posidonia shale formation a series of 26 samples from three boreholes wickensen harderode and haddessen in the hils syncline was investigated the main primary components of the shales are microfossiferous calcite 30 50 clay minerals 20 30 and type ii organic matter toc 7 15 hi 630 720 mg gc in immature samples characteristic sub centimetric light and dark lamination reflects rapid changes in the relative supply of these components total porosities decrease from 10 to 14 at ro 0 5 to 3 5 at ro 0 9 and then increase to 9 12 at ro 1 45 these maturity related porosity changes can be explained by a the primary composition of the shales b carbonate diagenesis c compaction and d the maturation micro migration local trapping and gasification of heterogeneous organic phases calcite undergoes dissolution and reprecipitation reactions throughout the maturation sequence pores quantifiable in sem ca 50 nm account for 14 25 of total porosity at ro 0 5 sem visible macropores1 are associated mainly with biogenic calcite at this maturity clays and organic matter are not visibly porous but nevertheless hold most of the shale porosity porosity loss into the oil window reflects a compaction b carbonate cementation and c perhaps the swelling of kerogen by retained oil in addition porosity is occluded by a range of bituminous phases especially in microfossil macropores and microfractures in the gas window mineral hosted porosity is still the primary form of macroporosity most commonly observed at the organic inorganic interface increasing porosity into the gas window also coincides with the formation of isolated spongy and complex meso and macropores within organic particles related to thermal cracking and gas generation this intraorganic porosity is highly heterogeneous point counted macroporosity of individual organic particles ranges from 0 to 40 with 65 of organic particles containing no macropores we suggest that this reflects the physicochemical heterogeneity of the organic phases plus the variable mechanical protection afforded by the mineral matrix to allow macroporosity to be retained the development of organic macroporosity cannot alone account for the porosity increase observed from oil to gas window major contributions also come from the increased volume of organic micro and meso porosity and perhaps by kerogen shrinkage

velocity anisotropy in shales a petrophysical study using ultrasonic velocity and anisotropy measurements on a variety of shales with different clay and kerogen content clay mineralogy and porosity at a wide range of effective pressure we find that elastic anisotropy of shales increases substantially with compaction the effect is attributed to both porosity reduction and smectite to illite transformation with diagenesis a means of kerogen content mapping using velocity versus porosity crossplot for shales is shown matrix anisotropy of shales dramatically increases with kerogen reaching the maximum values of about 0 4 at total organic carbon toc 15 20 a strong chemical softening effect was found in shales containing even minor amounts of swelling smectite clay when saturated with aqueous solution this effect results in a significant p wave anisotropy reduction as compared to dry and oil saturated shales since mature black shales are normally oil wet this effect can only have a local significance restricted to the wellbore wall accurate measurements of phase velocities including velocities at a 45 direction to the bedding plane allow us to immediately calculate elastic stiffnesses and anisotropic parameters intrinsic high pressure properties of shales display an e 0 relation introduction of the bedding parallel microcracks in overpressured shales results in a decrease when fully fluid saturated and a increase when partially gas saturated with a characteristic effect on the shape of the p wave velocity surface at small angles of incidence filtering the contribution of the intrinsic anisotropy of shales it is possible to estimate the pore fluid phase microcrack density and aspect ratio parameters using seismic anisotropy measurements

a comparative study of representative 2d microstructures in shaly and sandy facies of opalinus clay mont terri switzerland inferred form bib sem and mip methods abstract a combination of broad ion beam bib polishing and scanning electron microscopy sem has been used to study qualitatively and quantitatively the microstructure of opalinus clay in 2d high quality 2d cross sections ca 1 mm 2 belonging to the shaly and sandy facies of opalinus clay were investigated down to the nanometre scale in addition mercury intrusion porosimetry mip and x ray powder diffraction experiments have been used to extend characterization of the microstructure to the mm cm scale on bulk volume sample material interestingly both end member samples of the opalinus clay show qualitatively similar mineralogy and pore characteristics as well as a comparable pore size distribution and pore morphology within the different mineral phases and mineral aggregates differences between the facies are mainly due to variations in mineral size and mineral amount present in the alternating layers of the different facies six different porous mineral phases have been identified and the pores have been subdivided into ten different pore types pores visible in the sem images are most abundant in the clay matrix and these seem to follow a power law distribution with a power law exponent of ca 2 25 independent of the sample location furthermore all common mineral grains show characteristic porosity pore shape and pore size distribution in 2d and are proposed to be considered as elementary building blocks for opalinus clay combined these homogeneous elementary building blocks make up the heterogeneous fabric of the different facies of opalinus clay based on extrapolation of the power law size distribution in the clay matrix below sem resolution results in a porosity of 10 25 for clay rich layers 60 90 of clay matrix whereas sand and carbonate layers show an extrapolated porosity of 6 14 these extrapolated porosities are in agreement with water loss and physical porosity measurements performed on bulk material of comparable samples

bib sem study of the pore space morphology in early mature posidonia shale from the hils area germany abstract this contribution reports on the study of the pore space morphology in two early mature vr r 0 59 and 0 61 samples of posidonia shale from the hils syncline in germany using broad ion beam bib polishing and high resolution scanning electron microscopy sem this allows imaging pores with resolution down to 10 nm in equivalent diameter d eq and quantitative estimation of porosity using a combination of bse and se detectors and semi automatic segmentation of the gigapixel images the representative elementary area of the samples on the scale of a few mm is inferred to be about 140 140 m 2 pore morphologies and pore sizes are clearly related to the mineral fabric with large differences very large typically several microns pores with internal faceted crystal morphology in recrystallized calcite clasts and smaller pores d eq cf schizosphaerella nanofossils typically 200 nm pores are less common in organic material and in pyrite aggregates pore characteristics are very similar for both samples and porosity resolvable by bib sem is 2 75 and 2 74 pore size distribution can be described by a power law with an exponent about 2 0 and 2 2 respectively for the pore population excluding the fossils pores in the carbonate fossils show dual power law distribution with power law exponents of about 1 and 3 by extrapolating the power law distribution for each sample total porosity is estimated to be 4 8 0 9 1 7 and 6 5 2 7 7 2 respectively this estimate can be compared with 3 4 3 7 and 3 3 3 6 as measured by mercury injection porosimetry we interpret this difference to reflect the unconnected for mercury part of the porosity comparison of imaged pores and mercury injection porosimetry suggest a very high pore body to pore throat ratio this results in a pore model where large pores represented mainly by pores in fossils and calcite grains are connected via a low porous and low permeable clay rich matrix with pore throats below 10 nm in both samples

experimental laboratory determination of the dynamic elastic properties of wet drained shales the ultrasonic anisotropic elastic properties of drained saturated shales were measured as a function of confining pressure two shales were characterized in this study a jurassic outcrop shale retrieved under the sea in a saturated state and a kimmeridge clay shale cut from a north sea borehole both shales were highly anisotropic both texturally as revealed by scanning electron microscopy analysis and elastically as measured ultrasonically in the laboratory the strongest anisotropy was seen in the kimmeridge clay shale where up to 38 compressional wave anisotropy thomsen s parameter e and up to 58 shear wave anisotropy thomsen s parameter were observed in addition for both shales e and were found to decrease as a function of increasing confining pressure with the pore pressure drained to atmosphere while the anellipticity deviation of the slowness surfaces from ellipses was found to be positive and decreased as a function of increasing confining pressure accompanying these changes in elastic properties was a decrease in porosity with increasing confining pressure from 10 5 to 8 5 for the jurassic shale the decrease in overall anisotropy of the shales with increasing confining pressure was found to be consistent with theoretical modeling of shale properties where the shale anisotropy and anellipticity were predicted to decrease as a function of decreasing fluid filled porosity

velocity anisotropy estimation for brine saturated sandstone and shale velocity anisotropy is an important parameter in seismic analyses especially for deviated wells in offshore fields when the velocity anisotropy effect must be corrected to obtain a realistic sonic log response equivalent to seismic data for small incident angles however there is no method for an anisotropy correction when only standard log data from a single well are available we compiled experimental data of core velocity anisotropy from several recent publications to explore heuristic relationships between anisotropy parameters and general well log information and found a clear trend of velocity anisotropy in the crossplot domain between velocity and porosity subsequently we developed a method to estimate thomsen s anisotropy parameters e and by a regression in this domain in this paper we first show an application result of the method to demonstrate the significance of the correction then we summarize how we developed the method we also discuss an alternative approach using neural networks