Role of mechanical stratigraphy on fracture development in carbonate reservoirs: Insights from outcropping shallow water carbonates in the Umbria–Marche Apennines, Italy

Abstract

Studies on mechanical stratigraphy show that a link exists among facies, sedimentary cycles, diagenesis and fracturing. Understanding this link is fundamental for characterising fluid flow in natural reservoirs, especially carbonate ones. This work investigates the field of evidence through a case study in the Umbria–Marche Apennines: the Lower Jurassic shallow water carbonates of the Calcare Massiccio unit, a potential carbonate reservoir. A multidisciplinary approach is used, involving stratigraphy, sedimentology and structural geology. The studied succession crops out at the core of an ENE-verging anticline, located at Campolarzo, within the Umbria–Marche Apennines. The Calcare Massiccio here consists of high-frequency, metre-scale, shallowing upward, peritidal cycles. Three different cycles (thickness ranging from 0.3 to 3 m) have been recognised: type A (incomplete asymmetric cycle), type B (complete asymmetric cycle with sheet cracks) and type C (complete asymmetric cycle with tepees). Sedimentary textures vary according to the depositional environment. The subtidal facies is almost entirely mud-supported, with the exception of type A cycle, which locally can be grain-supported. The intertidal facies is from mud- to grain-supported and commonly laminated. The supratidal facies may be either absent (type A) or represented by vadose pisoid caliches, sheet cracks (type B) and tepees (type C). The overprinting of diagenetic facies (early diagenesis) is particularly evident in the supratidal intervals of type C cycle (tepee structures) and in the inter-supratidal intervals of type B cycle (sheet cracks). The fracture pattern within the Calcare Massiccio mainly consists of systematic joints organized in two prominent mutually perpendicular sets (orthogonal joints) and two subordinate non-perpendicular sets (diagonal joints). The orthogonal sets are interpreted as tensile joints developed sub-parallel (longitudinal joints) and sub-perpendicular (cross joints) to the NNW–SSE axial trend of the host anticline. The diagonal joints are interpreted as shear joints. In the study area, the fracture density is strongly controlled by heterogeneities of rock properties between and within facies, which in turn are determined by sedimentary textures and, dominantly, by the combination of sedimentary and diagenetic facies, e.g., by the petrofacies. The control played by the petrofacies distribution across the stratigraphic succession may justify strong variations in the fracture density (up to ca. 80% or more) within the same sedimentary cycle, as well as fracture terminations, independently from tectonic causes. A systematic decrease in fracture density going from subtidal to intertidal to inter-supratidal and tepee facies is evident. Minimum values are observed on tepee structures; fractures often terminate against supratidal intervals with tepee. The lowest fracture density characterises petrofacies where early diagenetic processes are more pronounced (i.e., the intertidal facies and the inter-supratidal facies with tepee, strongly affected by early dissolution cavities filled by early cements). No obvious correlation is observed between the fracture density and the thickness of the petrofacies layer.