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Nanochemo-mechanical signature of organic-rich shales: a coupled indentation–EDX analysis

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Abstract

The organic–inorganic nature of organic-rich source rocks poses several challenges for the development of functional relations that link mechanical properties with geochemical composition. With this focus in mind, we herein propose a method that enables chemo-mechanical characterization of this highly heterogeneous source rock at the micron and submicron length scale through a statistical analysis of a large array of energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) data coupled with nanoindentation data. The ability to include elemental composition to the indentation probe via EDX is shown to provide a means to identify pure material phases, mixture phases, and interfaces between different phases. Employed over a large array, the statistical clustering of this set of chemo-mechanical data provides access to the properties of the fundamental building blocks of clay-dominated organic-rich source rocks. The versatility of the approach is illustrated through the application to a large number of source rocks of different origin, chemical composition, and organic content. We find that the identified properties exhibit a unique scaling relation between stiffness and hardness. This suggests that organic-rich shale properties can be reduced to their elementary constituents, with several implications for the development of predictive functional relations between chemical composition and mechanical properties of organic-rich source rocks such as the intimate interplay between clay-packing, organic maturity, and mechanical properties of porous clay/organic phase.

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Acknowledgments

This work was conducted as part of the X-Shale project, an industry–academia partnership between MIT, Shell and Schlumberger enabled through MIT’s Energy Initiative. Shell and Schlumberger provided all the samples used in this study. The experimental results were obtained at X-Hub lab at MIT: https://cshub.mit.edu. The data supporting Figs. 9, 10, and 11 are available in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4. The authors are grateful to Dr. Nicola Ferralis from MIT for fruitful discussions. Thanks to Amer Deirieh for providing SEM images of Haynesville shale.

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  1. Sara Abedi

    Present address: Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Sara Abedi, Mirna Slim & Franz-Josef Ulm

  2. Shell International Exploration and Production, Projects and Technology, Houston, TX, USA

    Ronny Hofmann & Taras Bryndzia

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Abedi, S., Slim, M., Hofmann, R. et al. Nanochemo-mechanical signature of organic-rich shales: a coupled indentation–EDX analysis. Acta Geotech. 11, 559–572 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-015-0426-4

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