THz Imaging to Map the Lateral Microporosity Distribution in Carbonate Rocks

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy is a nondestructive tool used in many industries to analyze materials, including measuring the water content and the distribution of water in biological samples. THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) measures the dielectric and structural properties of a sample by probing it with an ultrafast THz pulse and measuring the change in amplitude and phase. In this study, we demonstrate the use of THz-TDS imaging to quickly map lateral (i.e., two-dimensional) variations in microporosity (ϕμ) using the THz attenuation due to water in the pores after clearing the large pores via centrifugation. Three carbonate rock plugs with differing ϕ and pore-size distributions were subsampled for this study. Three water saturation states were produced for each sample: saturated, centrifuged, and dry. At each saturation state, the sample is weighed and imaged using THz-TDS to spatially map and measure ϕμ. The results show that for each sample the ϕμ obtained using THz-TDS imaging is in excellent agreement with that obtained from both mass balance and MICP. In addition, the THz-TDS maps show significant differences in the spatial distribution of the microporosity for samples having similar composition. This method provides a means to measure ϕ and ϕμ while mapping the spatial distribution of ϕμ toward improved petrophysical characterization of carbonate reservoir rocks.