Whether the diagram of intergranular volume versus cementation volume is normative? —Take “depositional and compositional controls on diagenesis of the mixed siliciclastic-volcaniclastic sandstones: A case study of the Lower Cretaceous in Erennaoer Sag, Erlian Basin, NE China” for example

Abstract

The diagrams of intergranular volume versus cementation volume brought up by Houseknecht (1987) and Ehrenberg (1989), are extensively used around the globe to assess the relative significance of compaction and cementation to porosity reduction in sandstones. However, Houseknecht (1987) overlooked the fact that the bulk sediment volume is dynamically compressed during burial, which directly leads to deviation in evaluating original porosity loss. The present discussion is based on the theoretical and contrastive analysis. These analyses indicate the compactional porosity loss calculated by Ehrenberg's (1989) method is always greater than Houseknecht's (1987) method with a maximum difference of 12.7%. In contrast, the cementation porosity loss using Ehrenberg's (1989) method is always less than Houseknecht's (1987). Besides, the demonstration based on the data of Wei et al. (2020) also supports Ehrenberg (1989). Therefore, the method proposed by Ehrenberg (1989) should be highly recommended to be granted as a reference far and wide.