Pore size distributions and hydraulic conductivities of rocks derived from Magnetic Resonance Sounding relaxation data using multi-exponential decay time inversion

Abstract

In hydrogeology there is a variety of empirical formulae available for determination of hydraulic conductivity of porous media, all based on the analysis of grain size distributions of aquifer materials. Sensitivity of NMR measurements to pore sizes makes it a good indicator of hydraulic conductivity. Analogous to laboratory NMR, Magnetic Resonance Sounding (MRS) relaxation data are of a multi-exponential (ME) nature due to the distribution of different pore sizes in an investigated rock layer. ME relaxation behaviour will also arise due to the superposition of NMR signals which originate from different layers. It has been shown, that both kinds of ME behaviour coexist in MRS and can principally be separated by ME inversion of the field data. Only a few publications exist that have proposed approaches to qualitatively and quantitatively estimate petrophysical parameters such as the hydraulic conductivity from MRS measurements, i.e. MRS porosity and decay times. The so far used relations for the estimation of hydraulic conductivity in hydrogeology and NMR experiments are compared and discussed with respect to their applicability in MRS. Taking into account results from a variety of laboratory NMR and MRS experiments mean rock specific calibration factors are introduced for a data-base-calibrated estimation of hydraulic conductivity when no on-site calibration of MRS is available. Field data have been analysed using conventional and ME inversion using such mean calibration values. The results for conventional and ME inversion agree with estimates obtained from well core analysis for shallow depths but are significantly improved using a ME inversion approach for greater depths.