SPE

Society of Petroleun Engineers of "'ME

SPE 11970
Porosity Reduction in Sandstone
by W.E. Dibble Jr., Petrophysical Services Inc., Amos Nur, * Standford u.; and
J.M. Potter, Petrophysical Services, Inc .
Member SPE-AIME
Copyright 1983 Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME
This paper was presented at the 58th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Francisco, CA, October 5-8,1983. The material is subject
to correction by the author. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Write SPE, 6200 North Central Expressway,
Drawer 64706, Dallas, Texas 75206 USA. Telex 730989 SPEDAL.
ABSTRACT
Porosity reduction in siliceous sedimentary
rocks is worthy of detailed study because the
processes involved control the final porosity and
permeability observed in all oil and gas reservoirs_
In addition, porosity reduction and petroleum
generation and migration may also be related.
The effects on porosity reduction of the major
porosity-controlling variables are virtually
unknown and have been the subject of new experimental
studies. Cores of St. Peter Sandstone have been
subjected to high effective stress at room
temperature and with fluid flow occurring at various
rates. Relatively rapid pressure solution occurs
even at room temperature in a flowing system.
INTRODUCTION
Porosity is one of the most important aspects
of fluid-bearing rocks. However, at the present
state of knowledge, it is impossible to predict the
porosity or porosity distribution prior in rocks in
situ. The porosity of sedimentary rocks, for example,
actually represents only the end state of a long and
probably complicated series of processes causing
mostly porosity reduction. Several processes are
involved in porosity reduction including solution and
pressure solution, transport through the fluid of
components contained in solids, cementation, and
additional dissolution and recrystallization
processes. Major questions about these porosity
reduction processes and their interrelationships
exist.
The relationship between silica cementation and
pressure solution in siliceous sedimentary rocks is
unclear. It is generally not known if the silica
cement in a quartz sandstone is locally or
regionally derived or if the sedimentary system is
open or closed with respect to fluid flow during
porosity reduction. The quantitative significance
References at end of paper.
of local pressure solution in supplying silica for
quartz overgrowths has been questioned by Hayes
1

Blatt
2
even suggests that the bulk of the quartz
cement in orthoquartzites is precipitated at very
shallow depths from vertically circulating surface
waters. One possibility is that quartz overgrowths
formed at shallow depth and low effective stress
may have resulted from pressure solution at greater
depth at higher effective stress. Including fluid
flow as a transport mechanism, and consequently,
considering open systems is critical to any general
diagenetic model.
The rate of porosity reduction is another
significant problem of sandstone diagenesis with
implications for both reservoir quality and
production. If porosity reduction in sediments were
rapid relative to sedimentation rate, high porosity
in sedimentary basins would be limited to only the
most shallow rocks. In fact, original porosity in
oil reservoirs can persist to great depths
suggesting that porosity reduction rates under some
conditions are sluggish even over geologic time
spans. However, if porosity reduction rates could
be enhanced, perhaps by reducing pore pressures
during production or by changing fluid flow rates or
fluid chemistry, permanent formation damage could
result.
Quantitative understanding of the effects of
mechanical stress and fluid flow on porosity and
permeability at constant pore pressure and confining
stress are essential for our understanding the
diagenetic processes in sandstones. In this paper
the pertinent theory relating the critical porosity
reduction variables is reviewed; the relevance of
porosity reduction processes to oil and gas
generation, migration and trapping is discussed;
and results and implications of previous and on-going
experimental work are presented.
POROSITY REDUCTION PROCESSES
The most fundamental fluid/rock interactions
in the earth's crust involve porosity reduction
processes. Porosity reduction processes involving
2 POROSITY REDUCTION IN SANDSTONE SPE 11970
pressure solution and cementation can produce a
variety of porosity types and distributions within
an oil and gas reservoir (e.g., Wescott
3
): Under-
standing the mechanisms for porosity changes in
sandstones is important for prediction of the type
and magnitude of porosity, for well completion, for
understanding reservoir response, and for
determining the fluid migration history of a
sedimentary formation.
Furthermore, the relation between porosity and
permeability which control oil and gas production
are of great importance, and complex, as each
reservoir is unique simply because of the many
variables that 'influence porosity reduction. These
variables include temperature, pore fluid pressure,
lithostatic stress, fluid chemical composition,
mineralogic composition, and fluid flow rate.
Important differences in porosity and in
permeability between reservoirs or even within a
single reservoir may be caused by small changes in
the porosity-reducing controlling variables.
Despite the economic and scientific significance of
porosity and permeability relationships in porous
media such as sandstones, the effects of each
controlling variable on the magnitude and rate of
porosity reduction are virtually unknown.
Porosity reduction in sandstones is produced
by two fundamental coupled reactions. Pressure
solution is a coupled chemical-mechanical process
involving dissolution at grain contacts. Directed
stresses in rocks can produce high strain at grain
contacts, a solid with a greater solubility than
unstressed solid, and dissolution if fluid is
present. The chemical dissolution process con-
tributes to the transfer of components to other
parts of the system.
The second fundamental part of the porosity
reduction process in siliceous rocks involves the
growth of unstrained or low strain solid. The
thermodynamic driving force for the coupled
pressure solution/crystal growth process in fluid-
saturated quartz sandstones may be easily defined
in principle. The total reaction free energy for
dissolution of stressed quartz and growth of
unstressed quartz is simply related to the
difference between the solubilities of stressed and
unstressed quartz at constant temperature and
pressure.
For chemical equilibrium to be attained, the
solubility of quartz must be the same throughout
the system. Such uniformity of quartz solubility
can occur only after all stressed quartz has
dissolved. The elimination of strain in the system
can be complete when chemical-mechanical
equilibrium is attained, i.e. when the pore fluid
pressure, Pf' equals the confining or lithostatic
pressure, P
L
:
(1)
Whereas, for pressure solution and crystal growth
to occur, non-equilibrium conditions apply, and
(2 )
The driving force for both pressure solution
and crystal growth processes is related to the
effective stress or P
L
- P
f
. The total porosity
reduction reaction affinity is simply the difference
between the chemical potentials of Si02 in stressed
and unstressed quartz. If the fluid or pore pressure
is hydrostatic, the porosity reduction reaction
affinity increase with depth. Thus, if hydrostatic
fluid pressures predominate at significant depths, a
large driving force can be generated to drive
porosity reduction and lead eventually to the
attainment of chemical-mechanical equilibrium
(eqn. 1).
Any departure from equilibrium defined by eqn.
(1) implies neither chemical nor mechanical
equilibrium rigorously holds. Chemical-mechanical
equilibrium will be attained in any open system if
either porosity or permeability are reduced to zero
by the general porosity reduction process. The
porosity need not approach zero, however, as long as
eqn. (1) holds, i.e. the fluid supports part of the
lithostatic load. This latter constraint implies
that for a non-zero porosity to exist at chemical-
mechanical equilibrium, very low permeabilities
must be produced somewhere by the porosity reduction
process.
The relationship between effective stress
(PL - Pf) and porosity reduction rate and magnitude
has yet to be determined. On-going experimental
studies hopefully will provide a useful empirical
relationship between these variables. The
relationship between porosity, volumetric strain,
and chemical mass transfer can be more readily
defined, however.
The pore volume, V
p
, is defined as follows:
where VT is the total volume and Vs is the solid
volume. Since Vs = ms/ps, then
(3)
(4)
where ms is the mass and Ps' the density, of the
solid. By differentiating Eqn (4) at constant Ps:
dV dV
T
- ~ dm
p = Ps s
(5)
d, and d V T V ~ dE, we have:
(6) 1
d = dE - 0 dms
VTPs
where is the porosity V
T
- Vs)/V
T
), E represents
the volumetric strain, and V ~ an initial total
volume.
Eqn (6) indicates that changes in porosity are
functions of both mechanical and chemical factors.
The simple compaction of sediments without crystal
growth, dE, is the combined chemical/mechanical
SPE 11970 W.E. Dibble, Jr., A. Nur, and J.M. Potter
3
part of the absolute porosity reduction process.
An additional chemical part of the process is
related to dissolution and growth of solids in an
open system, dms. If ms increases per unit volume
of rock via overgrowth cementation processes, the
porosity decreases. If ms decreases via any kind
of dissolution process in an open system, the
porosity increases.
From Eqn (6) the relation for the rate of
porosity change can be obtained:
d
dt
(7)
where S is the volumetric strain rate. For an
open system involving only quartz sandstones,
dms/dt = /dt where the latter quantity
represents 1 z the net mass flux of SiOz out of
the rock and is related to dissolution and growth
rates of quartz and the flow rate. Thus, if there
is a net positive mass flux of SiOz out of a
quartz sandstone in an open system, the mass of
the solid per unit volume will decrease and the
porosity will increase at constant volumetric
strain:
d
net
dm
Si02
(8)
On the other hand, in a closed system, dm
net
0,
and
SiOz
d = ds (9)
In an open quartz sandstone system undergoing
compaction, the rate of porosity change is,
therefore,
d = s
dt
dm
net
1 Si0
2
+-----
dt
RATE-LIMITING POROSITY-REDUCING PROCESS
(10)
Porosity reduction is a chemically limited
process, and the rates of porosity reduction are
determined by chemical reaction rates. In a
closed quartz sandstone system undergoing porosity
changes, the steady-state condition is simply:
dissolution mass flux = growth mass flux. (11)
The rate of the overall porosity reduction process
will then be determined by the slowest part of the
overall process, either dissolution or growth.
The rate-limiting porosity-reducing process
can be deduced from the experimental work per-
formed by Sprunt and Nur
4
Hollow cores of
St. Peter sandstone were subjected to various
combinations of pore and confining pressures at
about 275C. The rate of porosity reduction was
initially large but declined significantly after
2 weeks. The porosity reduction in 2 weeks was
approximately 55% and occurred solely by pressure
solution and not grain crushing.
At constant effective stress (Pc - Pf = 500
bars), the rate of porosity reduction increased
with pore pressure
4
, i.e. after two weeks of
reaction, the porosity reduction was greater at
the larger pore pressures. However, since the
solubility of quartz increases with pore pressure,
rates of both dissolution and growth will increase
also.
The influence of effective stress on porosity
reduction rates as determined by Sprunt and Nur
4
is much more revealing. The rate of growth of
unstressed quartz will not depend directly on
effective stress, P
L
- Pf' but the rate of
dissolution of stressed quartz at grain contacts
should be strongly dependent on P
L
- P
f
. In
experiments in which pore pressure was fixed and
confining pressure was increased, it was found that
the rate of porosity reduction was independent of
effective stress
4
This result indicates that the
rate-controlling porosity-reducing process is the
growth of unstressed quartz.
The mass flux terms may be most simply derived
from expressions given by Dibble and Tillers so that
eqn. (11) can be written:
dissolution growth (12)
flux (stressed qtz) flux (unstressed qtz)
a
where Vd and Vg represent the dissolution velocity
of stressed quartz and growth velocity of unstressed
quartz, respectively, and Sand p refer to surface
area and density. If the growth of quartz is rate-
controlling and the surface area of quartz
dissolving at grain contacts is less than the 0
surface area of growing quartz (SO < S), then Vd
may be much larger than V
g
.
The steady-state condition for an open system
is as follows:
Sapo - Vg S P (13)
where is the net Si02 mass flux from the
rock and is a constant at steady-state and
constant flow rate. If the rate-controlling process
in an open system is the growth of quartz, /dt
can be a large positive quantity. 2
The hypothesis that quartz growth is rate
controlling during porosity reduction is supported
by observations of pressure solution textures in
quartz sandstones. For example, grain indentations
have been found in the absence of local quartz
overgrowths. One example is the Devonian Oriskany
Sandstone shown on page 165 of Scholle's6 AAPG
Memoir. Another excellent example is that of Dyer
7
who showed that no growth of quartz occurred during
pressure solution in Moab Sandstone. Pressure
solution grain indentations are ubiquitous in the
4 POROSITY REDUCTION IN SANDSTONE SPE 11970
Moab, but no quartz cement or overgrowths can be
found. In both cases, all the silica dissolved
at grain contacts had to be removed from the rock
by fluid flow producing a significant net mass
flux of silica from the rock.
POROSITY REDUCTION EXPERIMENTS
No experiments had previously been performed
that conclusively demonstrated that pressure
solution can even occur in quartz sandstones at
room temperatures. An initial experiment of an
on-going series was performed to test the following
hypotheses:
1) pressure solution strain could occur
in a quartz sandstone at room
conditions,
2) outlet aqueous silica concentrations
at high effective stress could be
greater than those produced by
dissolution of unstressed quartz, and
3) silica mass fluxes could be
significant in a sandstone subjected
to flow at high effective stress.
In this experiment, a core of St. Peter
Sandstone jacketed with teflon was subjected to a
constant confining pressure of just over one
kilobar. The pore pressure was maintained at one
bar for the duration of the flow-through. Previous
to generating such high effective pressure,
distilled water was flowed through the core at
rates comparable to those used at the higher
effective stress. Outlet silica concentrations
were below quartz saturation under low effective
stress conditions. The temperature was maintained
at 23 2 C. St. Peter Sandstone is a nearly pure
quartz sandstone which had already experienced
pressure solution at grain contacts and extensive
overgrowth cementation processes. Permeabilities
generally range from 500 md to over one Darcy in
the st. Peter.
Initial measured porosity was 18%. Flow
rates were controlled accurately using a flow
controllers.
Just after the effective stress had been
increased slowly to one kilobar, flow of
distilled water was initiated at a rate of
20 ml/day. Samples of outlet fluid were taken at
intervals ranging from ~ to one day and analyzed
colorimetrically for silica by the methods outlined
in Marshal1
9
At a constant flow rate, net silica
mass fluxes were observed to decrease rapidly and
the flow rate was decreased after 1.5 days to
10 ml/day. A maximum net silica mass flux of
180 ~ g d a y was measured at a flow rate of 20 ml/day.
The aqueous silica concentration was initially 50%
greater that the quartz solubility value, but
declined to less than quartz saturation in 3 days.
The flow rate was decreased further in steps to
1 ml/day, and a steady-state silica flux of
3 ~ g d a y was attained. Decreasing the flow rate
to less than 1 ml/day was impractical considering
the small quantities of sample obtained.
Discussion
The rate of quartz dissolution even at
elevated temperature has been shown to be linear
(dc/dt = constant) in distilled waterlOo If quartz
dissolution and growth kinetics are linear and
reaction velocities constant, net silica mass
fluxes will be independent of flow rate. The
observed decrease in net silica mass fluxes strongly
suggests quartz dissolution velocities decrease
with time in our experiments. These results are
consistent with stress relaxation occurring
relatively rapidly via pressure solution at room
temperature in a flowing system.
As quartz with higher strain and solubility is
dissolved at grain contacts, dissolution rates may
decline leading to lower net silica fluxes. The
high initial fluxes and concentrations greater than
quartz solubility values suggest dissolution rates
are greater than quartz growth rates. However,
after silica concentration levels dropped to below
quartz saturation, only quartz dissolution could
occur. Experiments under way at higher temperatures
should allow a better assessment of pressure
solution rate processes and mechanisms to be made.
Application to Oil Migration
Porosity reduction and oil generation often
occur simultaneously. It has even been suggested
recentlyll that porosity reduction in the Monterey
Formation may lead directly to expulsion of hydro-
carbons and migration up dip to more porous
reservoir rocks. The timing of oil generation
relative to porosity reduction is critical if such
diagenetic changes can contribute to oil flow.
Thus, the rate controls on porosity reduction in
siliceous rocks such as the Monterey need to be
understood.
Results of our preliminary experiments suggest
the rate of porosity reducing processes may be
influenced by flow rate. As noted by Sprunt and
Nur
4
, porosity reduction rates increased as a result
of slow fluid flow in one of their otherwise closed
system experiments. More experimental work needs to
be performed to determine the quantitative effect
of such parameters as flow rate and temperature on
porosity reduction rates.
NOMENCLATURE
ms Mass of solid (g)
Pc Experimental confining pressure
(bar or 100 kPa)
P
f
Pore fluid pressure (bar or 100 kPa)
P
L
Lithostatic pressure (analogous to Pc' bar)
S Surface area of unstressed solid (cm
2
)
V ~ Dissolution velocity of stressed solid (cm/s)
Vg Growth velocity of unstressed solid (cm/s)
SPE 11970 W.E. Dibble, Jr., A. Nur, and J.M. Potter
Vp
Pore volume (cm 3)
Vs
Solid volume (cm 3)
VT
Total volume (cm 3)
E Volumetric strain (%)
E Volumetric strain rate
Porosity (%)
Ps
Solid density (g / cm 3)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Manuscript preparation services rendered by
Kathy King are gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES
1. Hayes, J.B., 1979, "Sandstone diagenesis
The hole truth": SEPM Spec. Pub. No. 26,
127-139.
2. Blatt, H., 1979, "Diagenetic processes in
Sandstones": SEPM Spec. Pub. No. 26, 141-157.
3. Wescott, W.A., 1982, "Nature of porosity in
Tuscarora Sandstone in the Appalachian basin":
Oil and Gas Jour., Aug. 23, 1982, 159-173.
4. Sprunt, E.S. and Nur, A., 1977, "Destruction
of porosity through pressure solution":
Geophysics, ~ 726-741.
5. Dibble, W.E. and Tiller, W.A., 1981, "Non-
equilibrium water/rock interactions - I.
Model for interface-controlled reactions":
Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta., 45, 79-92.
6. Scholle, P.A., 1929, "Constituents, textures,
cements, and porosities of sandstones and
associated rocks": Am. Assoc. Pet. Geologists,
Memoir ~ 201 pp.
7. Dyer, J.R., 1982, "Jointing in sandstones,
Arches National Park, Utah": PhD. Thesis,
Stanford University.
8. Dibble, W.E. and Potter, J.M., 1982, "Effect
of fluid flow rates on geochemical processes":
SPE 10994, presented at the 57th Annual Fall
Meeting, Soc. Pet. Eng., New Orleans, LA,
Sept.
9. Marshall, W.L., 1980, "Amorphous silica
solubilities - I. Behavior in aqueous sodium
nitrate solutions: 23-300C, 0-6 Molal":
Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 44, 907-913.
10. Van Lier, J.A., de Bruyn, P.L., and Overbeek,
J. Th. G., 1960, "The solubility of quartz":
J. Phys. Chern., ~ 1675-1682.
11. McGuire, M.D., Bowersox, J.R., and Earnest,
L.J., 1983, "Diagenetically enhanced
entrapment of hydrocarbons - Southeastern
Lost Hills fractured shale pool, Kern County,
California": in Petroleum Generation and
Occurrence in the Miocene Monterey Formation,
California, Pacific Section SEPM, C.M. Isaacs
& R.E. Garrison eds., p. 171-183.
5