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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Environmental Geosciences (DEG)

Abstract

Environmental Geosciences, V. 21, No. 2 (June 2014), PP. 3957.

Copyright copy2014. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists/Division of Environmental Geosciences. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1306/eg.03031413012

Relationship between mineralogy and porosity in seals relevant to geologic CO2 sequestration

Alexander M. Swift,1 Lawrence M. Anovitz,2 Julia M. Sheets,3 David R. Cole,4 Susan A. Welch,5 and Gernot Rother6

1School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; [email protected]
2Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831; [email protected]
3School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; [email protected]
4School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; [email protected]
5School of Earth Sciences and Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; [email protected]
6Geochemistry and Interfacial Sciences Group, Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830-6110; [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Porosity and permeability are key petrophysical variables that link the thermal, hydrological, geochemical, and geomechanical properties of subsurface formations. The size, shape, distribution, and connectivity of rock pores dictate how fluids migrate into and through micro- and nano-environments, then wet and react with accessible solids. Three representative samples of cap rock from the Eau Claire Formation, the prospective sealing unit that overlies the Mount Simon Sandstone, a Previous HitpotentialNext Hit CO2 storage formation, were interrogated with an array of complementary methods. neutron scattering, backscattered-electron imaging, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, and mercury porosimetry. Results are presented that detail variations between lithologic types in total and connected nano- to microporosity across more than five orders of magnitude. Pore types are identified and then characterized according to presence in each rock type, relative abundance, and surface area of adjacent minerals, pore and pore-throat diameters, and degree of connectivity. We observe a bimodal distribution of porosity as a function of both pore diameter and pore-throat diameter. The contribution of pores at the nano- and microscales to the total and the connected porosity is a distinguishing feature of each lithology observed. Pore:pore-throat ratios at each of these two scales diverge markedly, being almost unity at the nanoscale regime (dominated by illitic clay and micas), and varying by one and a half orders of magnitude at the microscale within a clastic mudstone. Individual minerals, primarily illite and glauconite, have unmistakable pore and pore-throat signatures and contribute disproportionately to connected reactive surface area. The pore types created or evolved during diagenesis mediate profound differences between bulk and pore-network-accessible mineral associations in the mudstones. Results of this study can ultimately be Previous HitusedTop to inform reactive-transport simulations of effective reactive surface area.

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