Nuclear magnetic resonance characterization of shallow marine sediments from the Nankai Trough, Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 333

Abstract

We measured nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation times on samples from Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 333 Sites C0011, C0012, and C0018. We compared our results to permeability, grain size, and specific surface measurements, pore size distributions from mercury injection capillary pressure, and mineralogy from X-ray fluorescence. We found that permeability could be predicted from NMR measurements by including grain size and specific surface to quantify pore networks and that grain size is the most important factor in relating NMR response to permeability. Samples within zones of anomalously high porosity from Sites C0011 and C0012 were found to have different NMR-permeability relationships than samples from outside these zones, suggesting that the porosity anomaly is related to a fundamental difference in pore structure. We additionally estimated the size of paramagnetic sites that cause proton relaxation and found that in most of our samples, paramagnetic material is present mainly as discrete, clay-sized grains. This distribution of paramagnetic material may cause pronounced heterogeneity in NMR properties at the pore scale that is not accounted for in most NMR interpretation techniques. Our results provide important insight into the microstructure of marine sediments in the Nankai Trough.

Review of natural gas hydrates as an energy resource: Prospects and challenges

“…Driven by high natural gas price in Japan, the JOGMEC has been actively investigating the methane hydrate deposits in the marine sediments in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast of central Japan. After some work on sediment and resource characterization [203][204][205], the world's first offshore production test was accomplished in 2013 employing depressurization technique [58,206]. Provisional results thus far indicate that the offshore gas production lasted for 6 days, with a total gas production of 120,000 m 3 [207].…”

Low‐Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Characterization of Carbonate and Sandstone Reservoirs From Rock Spring Uplift of Wyoming

“…Kleinberg et al () developed a NMR‐permeability equation that have been widely used in oilfield NMR logging based on Kenyon () relationship. A NMR‐permeability equation that is analogous to Kenyon relationship is given by where C is an expirical constant which may depend on mineralogy and pore fluid‐rock interactions (Daigle et al, ; Kleinberg et al, ); T 2 g m is the geometric mean value of the T 2 distribution. Equation is also known as the Schlumberger‐Doll Research (SDR) model or the mean T 2 model.…”

“…For brine‐saturated rock samples, diffusion relaxation is minimized if small echo spacing is used (Daigle et al, ), yielding a negligible diffusion term in equation . For brine, the magnetization decay is sufficiently smaller than the surface relaxation rate in a porous media (Daigle & Johnson, ; Kleinberg & Horsfield, ); T 2 is dominated by T 2surface and can be simplified as …”

“…Laboratory measurements of thin section and SEM analysis have been used to study petrographical properties in geologic storage of CO 2 (Krevor et al, ; Medina et al, ; Vialle & Vanorio, ). Proton NMR measurements are widely used to characterize the pore structure and pore fluids in rocks quickly and nondestructively (Daigle et al, ; Wang & Alvarado, ). This technique records the spin axis relaxation times of protons in the presence of pulsed and static magnetic fields, which can be used to determine surface area‐to‐pore volume ratio and restricted‐diffusion coefficients of the pore fluid(s) present, and serves to estimate porosity, permeability, and pore‐size distribution (Daigle et al, ; Hürlimann et al, ; Mitchell et al, ; Sigal, ; Yi‐Qiao et al, ).…”

Successful Sampling Strategy Advances Laboratory Studies of NMR Logging in Unconsolidated Aquifers

“…The relaxation time constant of the NMR signal, that is, the time it takes for the nuclear spins to reequilibrate to their initial state after being perturbed by an energizing pulse, contains information about the pore size distribution (Bird et al, ; Brownstein & Tarr, ; Hinedi et al, ; Müller‐Petke et al, ). Taken together, the NMR parameters have been linked to hydraulic conductivity ( K ) through the use of various empirical relationships (Daigle & Dugan, ; Daigle et al, ; Dlubac et al, , ; Dlugosch et al, ; Knight et al, ; Legchenko et al, ; Vilhelmsen et al, ).…”