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Characteristics and geological significance of fluorescence for sandstone grains and hydrocarbon extracts from low permeability reservoirs in the Ordos Basin, China

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Abstract

The Triassic Chang-3 and Jurassic Yanan low-permeability reservoirs in the southern part of the Tianhuan Depression of the Ordos Basin, north-central China, were investigated using the quantitative fluorescence of reservoir sandstone grains and their hydrocarbon extracts. Values of quantitative grain fluorescence on extract intensity (QGF-E) are generally higher than 150 pc, indicating that oil and gas migration has taken place in the low-permeability tight sand bodies in the study area, so these sandstone strata were the main transport system of oil and gas migration. The values of QGF index and QGF-E in the Chang-3 subsection profile above 2168 m are higher than those below 2168 m; similarly, the two values in the Yanan formation profile above 1849 m are higher than those below 1849 m, indicating that the oil–water contacts of the Chang-3 subsection and Yanan Formation in the study area are 2168.0 and 1849.0 m, respectively. The results of total scanning fluorescence for hydrocarbon extracts from the Chang-3 subsection and Yanan Formation show that the extracts contain low aromatic hydrocarbon and are mature. Our results demonstrate that QGF and QGF-E methods are very effective in understanding the properties and accumulation process of hydrocarbon in low-permeability tight reservoir.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Prof. David K. Ferguson from University of Vienna, Austria, for his help with the manuscript revision, and Prof. Wang Feiyu from China University of Petroleum for his help with the sample analyses. This work was conducted under the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2012CB822003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.41172022), and the National Science and Technology Major Projects (2011zx05001-004).

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Correspondence to Bainian Sun.

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Zhao, Y., Sun, B., Duan, Y. et al. Characteristics and geological significance of fluorescence for sandstone grains and hydrocarbon extracts from low permeability reservoirs in the Ordos Basin, China. Arab J Geosci 8, 10213–10223 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-015-1942-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-015-1942-0

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