1887

Abstract

Summary

The Lorraine Basin is one of the largest geologically and commercially important coalfields in the Europe. It has the potential to host unconventional plays including coalbed methane. Nearly all CBM plays are affected in some way by natural fractures sets or cleat, which is just a miner’s term for closely spaced fractures or joints in coal. Cleat systems can be traced throughout wide diapason of scales from visually evident into nanoscale levels. A proper understanding of natural cleat patterns is a key factor for estimating of the producibility of coalbed methane gas reservoirs. To explore the architecture of solid coal samples we used X-ray computed tomography with resolutions of 30, 10 and 2 microns. The X-ray CT is a non-destructive technique of inspection of internal structure of solid specimen based on recording abnormal attenuations levels of X-rays after passing them through a specimen, which are dependent on density contrasts within studied specimen. Microfissures are often sealed by mineralization possessing drastic density contrast on the background of coal matter. We propose 3-D mapping of fractal dimension for cleat arrays as a connectivity 3-D measure, which could useful for ensuring technical decisions for efficient exploration and exploitation of CBM reservoirs.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201700758
2017-06-12
2024-03-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Barton, C. C.
    [1995] Fractal analysis of scaling and spatial clustering of fractures, in Fractals in the Earth Sciences, edited by C. C.Barton and P.La Pointe, New York: Plenum Press, 141–178.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Izart, A., Barbarand, J., Michels, R. and Privalov, V.
    [2016] Modelling of the thermal history of the Carboniferous Lorraine Coal Basin: Consequences for CBM. Int. J. of Coal Geology, 168, 253–274.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Pryvalov, V., Pironon.J., Izart, A., Michels, R. and PanovaO.
    [2015] A new tectonic model for the late Palaeozoic evolution of the Lorraine-Saar coal-bearing basin (France/Germany). Tectonics and Stratigraphy (Kyiv), 42, 40–50.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Feder, J.
    [1988] Fractals. New York: Plenum Press. 310 p.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Mazumder, S., Wolf, K.-H.A.A., Elevaut, K. and Ephraim, R.
    [2006] Application of X-ray computed tomography for analyzing cleat spacing and cleat aperture in coal samples. Int. J. of Coal Geology, 68, 205–222.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Park, S-I., Kim, Y-S., Ryoo, C-R. and SandersonD.J.
    [2010] Fractal analysis of the evolution of a fracture network in a granite outcrop, SE Korea. Geoscience Journal, 14, 201–215
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Rodriguez, C.F., Laiginhas, C., Fernandes, M., Lemos de Sousa, M.J. and Dinis, M.
    [2014] The coal cleat system: A new approach to its study. J. of Rock Mechanics and Geot. Engineering6, 208–218.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201700758
Loading
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201700758
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error