Favorable gas content, depth, and thickness, along with high brittleness of the Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin, North Texas, have made the basin one of the best shale-gas plays in North America. Using recent pore images and geochemical data for the Barnett Shale, we investigated potential effects of organic matter on petrophysical properties, pore networks and fluid flow in gas-shale systems. Four types of porous media are present in productive gas-shale systems: nonorganic matrix, organic matter, natural fractures, and hydraulic fractures. Organic-matter pores, ranging from 5 to 1,000 nm, are especially important because they can adsorb gases as well as store free gases. Gas content and adsorption data from Barnett Shale also suggest that a significant amount of free gas is stored in organic matter. Porosity in organic matter can be five times higher than that in the nonorganic matrix. Organic matter is oil wet, and associated pores work as nanofilters for hydrocarbon flow, suggesting that fluid flow in organic matter is predominantly single phase. Owing to high porosity, predominantly single-phase flow, and the gas slippage effect, gas permeability in organic matter, significantly higher than that in the nonorganic matrix, tends to enhance gas permeability in gas shale. In addition, the pore network in organic matter, can be larger than that in the fractures, could be the hidden pathway to high gas production in gas shale when connected to natural and hydraulic fractures.

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An analysis of 31 whole cores (1600 ft, 490 m) and closely spaced wireline logs (500 wells) penetrating the Lower Cretaceous (Cenomanian) lower Woodbine Group in the mature East Texas field and adjacent areas indicates that depositional origins and complexity of the sandstone-body architecture in the field vary from those inferred from previous studies. Heterogeneity in the lower Woodbine Group is controlled by highstand, fluvial-dominated deltaic depositional architecture, with dip-elongate distributary-channel sandstones pinching out over short distances (typically <500 ft [<150 m]) into deltaplain and interdistributary-bay siltstones and mudstones. This highstand section is truncated in the north and west parts of the field by a thick (maximum of 140 ft [43 m]) lowstand, incised-valley-fill succession composed of multistoried, coarsegravel conglomerate and coarse sandstone beds of bed-load fluvial systems. In some areas of the field, this valley fill directly overlies distal-delta-front deposits, recording a fall in relative sea level of at least 215 ft (65 m).Correlation with the Woodbine succession in the East Texas Basin indicates that these highstand and lowstand deposits occur in the basal three fourth-order sequences of the unit, which comprises a maximum of 14 such cycles. Previous studies of the Woodbine Group have inferred meanderbelt sandstones flanked by coeval flood-plain mudstones and well-connected, laterally continuous sheet sandstones of wave-dominated deltaic and barrier-strand-plain settings. This model is inappropriate, and a full assessment of reservoir compartmentalization, fluid flow, and unswept mobile oil in East Texas field should include the highstand, fluvial-dominated deltaic and lowstand valley-fill sandstone-body architecture.

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