Abstract
Understanding of the effects of total organic carbon (TOC) content and saturation on elastic properties of gas shales would allow quantitative and reliable estimation of reservoir resources. Here we use anisotropic differential effective medium (DEM) modelling to capture the effects of TOC and simultaneously invert for inorganic matrix properties of the Bakken and Bazhenov shales. Then we show that the effect of partial saturation observed in controlled laboratory experiments, cannot be explained with saturation effects alone. We speculate that desiccation is accompanied by development of discontinuities as have been reported in a number of studies. Incorporation of the effect of horizontal discontinuities modelled using Sayers-Kachanov excess compliance approach results in improved data fitting.
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