Core SM14 from North Yorkshire, UK: an Unrivalled GCS-Related Dataset from the Triassic Haisborough Group

In the Southern North Sea region, the Lower Triassic Bunter Sandstone Formation and the overlying Middle to Upper Triassic Haisborough Group form a reservoir-and-seal couplet for prospective geological carbon storage (GCS) in the UK and beyond. Nevertheless, due to a dearth of core material, the mudstones and evaporites of the Haisborough Group are grossly understudied. The SM14 core from the Anglo American Woodsmith Mine site in North Yorkshire, UK, offers a unique opportunity to study a complete, near 300-m-thick succession of the Haisborough Group, which serves as an immediate analogue for potential GCS storage sites offshore. CASP has documented the entire succession via sedimentary logging and facies analysis, and has taken hand-held X-ray fluorescence (XRF) measurements directly from the core. A total of 64 large core samples underwent a comprehensive analytical protocol including quantitative X-ray diffraction (QXRD), optical petrography, scanning electron microscope energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), porosity-permeability and mercury injection capillary pressure (MICP) analyses. Together with a variety of rock strength tests and a comprehensive suite of wireline data, this has led to the production of an unrivalled dataset from the Haisborough Group, which is highly relevant to potential geological carbon storage sites in the Southern North Sea Basin.