--> ABSTRACT: Building and Testing Mineral Models for Mineral-Based Formation Evaluation, by A. B. Carpenter; #91021 (2010)

Datapages, Inc.Print this page

Building and Testing Mineral Models for Mineral-Based Formation Evaluation

CARPENTER, ALDEN B.

Reliable estimates of several reservoir properties are potentially available from mineral-based formation evaluation. Effective mineral-based formation evaluation requires an accurate "model" for each significant mineral within a logged interval. A "model" consists of the average major and trace element composition and relevant properties of a mineral for an interval of interest. A particularly effective way to build a mineral model is from chemical analyses of thin, foot-long core slabs cut from approximately 30 feet of continuous core. Each foot-long sample is crushed, sampled with a splitter, and chemically analyzed. The identities of the minerals in a few samples are determined by x-ray diffraction and/or petrographic analysis. The average composition of each mineral in the sample set and the mineralogical composition of each sample in the set can be estimated by a non-linear least-squares analysis of the set of chemical analyses. The trace element composition of each mineral in the sample set can be determined by a linear least-squares analysis of relationships between mineral abundances and bulk rock trace-element content for the sample set. Relevant mineral properties are then estimated from the average major and trace element content of each mineral. Estimates of mineralogy from mineral-based formation evaluation should be checked against the mineralogy determined for the core. 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91021©1997 AAPG Annual Convention, Dallas, Texas.