It is well known that there is no ''universal'' permeability-porosity relationship valid in all porous media. However, the evolution of permeability and porosity in rocks can be constrained provided that the processes changing the pore space are known. In this paper, we review observations of the relationship between permeability and porosity during rock evolution and interpret them in terms of creation/destruction of effectively and non-effectively conducting pore space. We focus on laboratory processes, namely, plastic compaction of aggregates, elastic-brittle deformation of granular rocks, dilatant and thermal microcracking of dense rocks, chemically driven processes, as a way to approach naturally occurring geological processes. In particular, the chemically driven processes and their corresponding evolution permeability-porosity relationships are discussed in relation to sedimentary rocks diagenesis.

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[1] As a first step toward determining the mixing laws for the transport properties of rocks, we prepared binary mixtures of high-and low-permeability materials by isostatically hot-pressing mixtures of fine powders of calcite and quartz. The resulting rocks were marbles containing varying concentrations of dispersed quartz grains. Pores were present throughout the rock, but the largest ones were preferentially associated with the quartz particles, leading us to characterize the material as being composed of two phases, one with high permeability and the second with low permeability. We measured the permeability and storativity of these materials using the oscillating flow technique, while systematically varying the effective pressure and the period and amplitude of the input fluid oscillation. Control measurements performed using the steady state flow and pulse decay techniques agreed well with the oscillating flow tests. The hydraulic properties of the marbles were highly sensitive to the volume fraction of the highpermeability phase (directly related to the quartz content). Below a critical quartz content, slightly less than 20 wt %, the high-permeability volume elements were disconnected, and the overall permeability was low. Above the critical quartz content the high-permeability volume elements formed throughgoing paths, and permeability increased sharply. We numerically simulated fluid flow through binary materials and found that permeability approximately obeys a percolation-based mixing law, consistent with the measured permeability of the calcite-quartz aggregates.

We tested samples cored from the Vaca Muerta shale reservoir using nanoindentation (2 min) and triaxial (12 hr) creep experiments in which confining pressure and differential stresses were <40 MPa. In all cases, we observed transient creep wherein strain increased as the logarithm of time. Creep was always compactional, led to increased moduli, was triggered by changes in either hydrostatic or deviatoric stress, and occurred under loads well below the failure stress. Our results are consistent with yield cap models proposed to describe shear‐enhanced compaction of sandstones and carbonates, assuming that the yield surface depends on strain rate. We compared our results to earlier studies that observed the transition from transient creep to approximately constant strain rate behavior. If short‐term creep can be quantified by a creep modulus, C, and long‐term creep, after a transition time, tc, by a linear viscosity, η, then η = Ctc. Owing to heterogeneity, the local values of Young's and creep moduli, E and C, measured during nanoindentation, varied by several orders of magnitude. Simple averaging of the indentation results overestimated E and C, as compared to their triaxial counterparts. The kinetics of log time creep, which is seen in various materials and loading circumstances, has been represented by a simple conceptual model incorporating the interplay of viscoelastic elements with widely distributed characteristic times. Thus, we argue that log time creep is an emerging phenomenon, independent of the identities of the underlying physical mechanisms.