Pore structure characteristics and permeability of deep sedimentary rocks determined by mercury intrusion porosimetry

Abstract

Pore structure characteristics of rock are a great concern for researchers and practitioners in rock mechanics and rock engineering fields. In this study, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) was used to measure pore size distribution, as well as several important index parameters of pore structure, for seven common types of deep sedimentary rocks with a total of fifty rock samples. Results show a similar pore size distribution pattern of the rock samples in the same lithological group, but remarkable differences among different lithological groups. Among seven investigated rock types, mudstone has the smallest porosity of 3.37%, while conglomerate has the largest value of 18.8%. It is also found that the porosity of rock types with finer grain size is lower than those with coarser grain size. Meanwhile, a comparison of frequency distribution at ten intervals of pore-throat diameter among seven types of sedimentary rocks reveals that different rock types have different dominant pore-size ranges. Furthermore, permeability of the investigated sedimentary rock samples was derived based on MIP data using reported theoretical equations. Among seven rock types, mudstone has the lowest averaged permeability (3.64×10-6 mD) while conglomerate has the highest one (8.59×10-4 mD). From mudstone to conglomerate, rock permeability increases with an increase of grain size, with only an exception of siltstone which has a relatively larger porosity value. Finally, regression analysis show that there is a good fitting (R 2=0.95) between permeability and porosity which could be easily used to derive reliable permeability values of similar kinds of engineering rocks.