The Bureau of Economic Geology The University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences
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Devoted to integrated, multidisciplinary research in mudrock systems. Key research elements include:

  • Sedimentology: facies character and distribution
  • Stratigraphy: regional and reservoir-scale architecture
  • Diagenesis: clay and silica diagenesis, compaction, cementation, and fracturing
  • Pore systems: imaging, size, abundance, and distribution
  • Petrophysics: wireline log calibration and upscaling
  • Organic geochemistry: kerogen distribution and thermal maturity
  • Inorganic geochemistry: depositional and diagenetic controls on elemental composition
  • Gas chemistry: origin, storage, distribution, and flow
  • Fluid flow: modeling of nano-scale permeability
  • Engineering: analysis of completion practices, and their relation to rock attributes

 

Sample prep by Ar-ion milling and imaging by FE-SEM allows characterization of pores systems at the nano-scale.

 





Basin-scale stratigraphic and depositional models provide key context for up-scaling of results at smaller scales.

 


Mudrock Units

Gas Shales
- Barnett
- Bone Spring
- Eagle Ford
- Haynesville
- Marcellus
- New Albany
- Pearsall
- Smithwick
- Woodford

Not Gas Shales
- Frio
- Wilcox
- Nankai accretionary prism
- Tuscaloosa

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Research Methods and Instrumentation:

  • Nano-pore analysis: Field-emission SEM microscopy, Ar-ion milling, Atomic force microscopy
  • Elemental and mineralogical composition: Field-emission SEM, cathodoluminescence, X-ray mapping, and light microscopy; electron microprobe, XRD, XRF, stable isotope analysis
  • Fluid-flow modeling: atomic force microscopy
  • Organic matter and hydrocarbon analysis: Rock Eval, GC, GCMS,
  • δ13C, SARA, vitrinite reflectance, kerogen analysis
  • Attribute distribution: integrated outcrop, core, and geophysical analysis, X-ray CT
  • Rock mechanics and fractures: integrated core study and basin history modeling.
 




 
         
 
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