One potential method for mitigating the impacts of anthropogenic CO2-related climate change is the sequestration of CO2 in depleted geological gas and oil formations, including shale. The accurate characterization of the heterogeneous material properties of shale, including pore capacity, surface area, pore-size distributions, and composition is needed to understand the potential storage capacities of shale formations. Powdered idealized shale samples were created to explore reduction of the complications in characterization of pore capacity that arise from the heterogeneous rock composition and pore sizes ranging over multiple orders of magnitude. The idealized shales were created by mechanically mixing incremental amounts of four essential powdered components by weight and characterized with low pressure gas adsorption/desorption isotherms. The first two components, organic carbon and phyllosilicates (such as clays, micas, and chlorite), have been shown to be the most important components for CO2 uptake...