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Abstract

AAPG Bulletin, V. 106, No. 5 (May 2022), P. 1051-1069.

Copyright ©2022. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1306/02262120123

Pore structure of sediments from Green Canyon 955 determined by mercury intrusion

Hugh Daigle,1 Yi Fang,2 Stephen C. Phillips,3 and Peter B. Flemings4

1Center for Subsurface Energy and the Environment, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas; Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas; [email protected]
2Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas; [email protected]
3Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas; present address: US Geological Survey, Woods Hole, Massachusetts; [email protected]
4Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas; Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas; [email protected]

ABSTRACT

We used mercury injection capillary pressure measurements to characterize the pore structure of three channel–levee lithofacies (sandy silt, clayey silt, and silty clay) from the gas hydrate reservoir in Green Canyon Block 955 in the northern Gulf of Mexico. We compared measurements on both depressurized and reconstituted samples and also made comparisons across the different lithofacies. Comparison between depressurized and reconstituted sandy silt samples indicated that the displacement pressures, porosities, percolation thresholds, and pore volume fractal dimensions were not statistically different between the two sample sets, suggesting that resedimentation is an effective method for recreating intact sample fabric. The modal pore radii corresponding to the peaks in the pore-size distributions were 4.56 ± 0.52 µm for sandy silt, 0.0610 ± 0.0080 µm for clayey silt, and 0.0326 ± 0.0039 µm for silty clay. We found that the Thomeer capillary drainage curve model better represented the measurements than the van Genuchten model. The displacement pressures for methane gas displacing water were 0.0144 ± 0.0034 MPa for sandy silt, 1.30 ± 0.15 MPa for clayey silt, and 2.72 ± 0.13 MPa for silty clay (errors reported as ±1 standard deviation). Based on the measured pore-size distributions, we found that the maximum hydrate saturation in the sandy silt layers is controlled by limitations on methane transport and not by capillary inhibition of hydrate growth.

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