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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Special Volumes

Abstract

Chapter from:
AAPG Memoir 70: Abnormal Pressures in Hydrocarbon Environments
Edited by B.E. Law, G.F. Ulmishek, and V.I. Slavin
Copyright ©1998 by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Memoir 70, Chapter 5: Relation of Shale Porosities, Gas Generation, and Compaction to Deep Overpressures in the U.S. Gulf Coast, by John M. Hunt, Jean K. Whelan, Lorraine Buxton Eglinton, and Lawrence M. Cathles III, Pages 87 - 104

Chapter 5
 Relation of Shale Porosities, Gas Generation, and Compaction to Deep Overpressures in the U.S. Gulf Coast

John M. Hunt
Jean K. Whelan 
Lorraine Buxton Eglinton
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Lawrence M. Cathles III
Department of Geological Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.

Abstract

Direct measurements of porosities from Tertiary and Cretaceous shales in the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast show that in many areas shale porosity is either constant or increasing at the depths where high over pressures occur and where hydrocarbons are being generated. In the absence of a decrease in porosity with sediment load (depth), gas generation becomes the principal cause of overpressures and hydrocarbon expulsion.

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