The microgeometry and transport properties of sedimentary rock

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Abstract
This monograph describes recent progress in modelling the transport properties of sedimentary rock. Statistical descriptions are applied to the pore-space geometry and to the transport processes involving pore fluids. Fractals are used to quantify the pore geometry at length scales shorter than grain size. Percolation theory is applied to fluid flow. The permeability can be expressed in terms of a single effective pore diameter measured from mercury injection capillary pressure. This permeability relation is valid for essentially all porous rock and for a broad class of porous media. Mercury injection provides a powerful caliper of the geometry of a percolation cluster in a pore-space and supplies new information about pore space correlations and dynamics of fluid displacements. The statistical description of fluid transport in porous media has analogues in disordered electronic and magnetic materials. Future work may make substantial use of such analogues to solve more complex problems of direct relevance to petroleum exploration and production.