Search

To improve our understanding of wave dispersion and adsorption signature of organic shales, we select a set of vertical shale samples cored from different formations and conduct the forced-oscillation measurements in seismic frequencies of 2–800 Hz at the oven-dried conditions. The results demonstrated that both Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio of immature Barnett and Eagle Ford shales and mature Mancos shale remain roughly constant and the extensional attenuations are also insignificant at the entire frequency band. However, the mature Jungar shale exhibits strong dispersions with the magnitude of 23.4 per cent for Young's modulus at the confining pressure of 3.4 MPa. The dispersion and magnitude of Jungar shale overall exhibit a decreasing trend with increasing pressure, but still maintain strong attenuation at the confining pressure of 20.8 MPa. It is found that the single parameter of TOC, thermal maturity and clay content are not the controlling factors of wave dispersion and adsorption signatures. Instead, the geochemical index |${\rm{TOC}} \times {S_1}/({S_1}{\rm{ + }}{S_2})$| is positively correlated with dispersion and attenuation magnitude, suggesting that organic richness and maturity level jointly control the wave adsorption characteristics. Geochemical analysis and phenomenological modelling imply that such kinds of energy dissipation in organic shales are possibly caused by the viscous friction at interfaces between inorganic grains and the surface of liquefied or bitumen-filled organic matter. Besides, a modified standard linear solid model containing multiple sets of a characteristic frequency is proposed and well captures the continuous dispersion signatures considering that the Jungar shale contains various maturity-induced viscous organic matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneity is an inherent feature of subsurface rocks. Unconventional reservoir shales, a group of typically fined-grained sedimentary rocks, usually exhibit strong heterogeneities due to the diversity of their constituents, including stiff silicate and carbonate minerals, ductile clay minerals, and organic matter. Understanding the influence of heterogeneities on the mechanical response as well as the failure behavior of reservoir shales plays a crucial role in numerous fields of Earth and Energy sciences, such as unconventional reservoir exploration, sealing of CO 2 sequestration, nuclear waste disposal, and hydrogen storage. In this study, we propose two heterogeneity indexes, intending to quantitatively characterize the heterogeneity of mineralogical compositions in unconventional reservoir shales. The first index takes into account the heterogeneity of mineral content, and the other one comprehensively considers the mineralogical heterogeneity and its corresponding mechanical properties. We apply these heterogeneities indexes to two experimental datasets of marine and lacustrine shales. The results show that the heterogeneity index significantly influences the mechanical properties and deformation behaviors of reservoir shales. As the increment of heterogeneous indexes, the ultimate strength and static Young's modulus show a general decreasing trend. However, the effect of the heterogeneity index on the static Poisson's ratio is weak. The numerical simulation results also confirm our experimental analysis, where the ultimate strength and Young's modulus of rock have a negative correlation with the heterogeneity indexes. The proposed heterogeneity indexes provide insights into understanding the mechanical behaviors and fracability assessment of reservoir shales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]