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SUMMARY Quantification understanding, and prediction of physical rock properties rely so far predominantly on laboratory analyses of cores and plugs. Based on such data, petrophysical models are found that relate both microstructural properties and environmental conditions to geophysically accessible quantities. When considering reactive rock–fluid–gas systems, for example in geothermal energy, enhanced oil recovery or carbon dioxide sequestration, especially with carbonatic rock matrix, this approach is costly and time-consuming at best, or impossible to implement at worst. This is based on the two following reasons: First, porosity, permeability and accessible internal surface area in solid rock plugs are often so low that experimental time duration of many months or even years would be required to achieve chemical equilibrium. Secondly, plugs are single specimens of their — generally heterogeneous — original rock formation, which strongly questions the representativeness of single-plug data. To overcome these shortcomings, we present a new methodology based on the combination of systematic crushing, multimethod laboratory measurements and model-based computational evaluation with solving an inverse problem. As a first step, a large amount of undisturbed rock is intentionally crushed and divided in several particle size classes. Then, petrophysical laboratory measurements are carried out on all particle size classes. The resulting data set is finally inverted for the intended properties of the undisturbed rock. This inverse problem entails a three-level forward model, which parametrizes the undisturbed rock properties, particle characteristics and particle packings, but can also be freely adapted to other tasks by any suitable model representation. The three-level model is designed to enforce the petrophysical correlation of all properties at all levels while using a minimal set of model parameters, thus keeping the inverse problem overdetermined. For the inversion, we have developed a publicly available software tool (AnyPetro) based on a Gauss–Newton inversion scheme to minimize a damped least-squares objective function. To demonstrate and validate the proposed methodology, we present a study using five rock types — four carbonates and one sandstone as a reference. Laboratory measurements of complex electrical conductivity (from spectral induced polarization), specific surface (from nitrogen adsorption) and intraparticle porosity (from mercury intrusion) have been carried out on eight particle size classes and on plugs of each rock for comparison. Supportive and complementary analyses include, for example particle geometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning electron microscopy, computer tomography, uniaxial compression strength and mineralogical composition. We show that our new methodology is highly capable of robustly recovering the complex electrical conductivity, specific surface and porosity of the undisturbed rocks from the measured data. The resulting sets of model parameters are petrophysically reasonable and verifiable. The presented methodology can further be applied to the use of drill cuttings as sample material, which is often the only available rock material from deep wells. Our findings also represent a methodological advance for laboratory experiments on reactive systems and both the interpretation and prediction of petrophysical rock properties in such systems.

To investigate the effect of azimuthal anisotropy on frequency-domain marine controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) responses, an adaptive edge-based finite-element (FE) modeling algorithm is presented in this letter. The 3-D algorithm is capable of dealing with generally anisotropic conductive media. It is implemented on unstructured tetrahedral grids, which allow for complex model geometries. The accuracy of the FE solution is controlled through adaptive mesh refinement, which is performed iteratively until the solution converges to the desired accuracy tolerance. The algorithm is validated against the quasi-analytic solutions for a 1-D layered model with anisotropy. We then simulate the marine CSEM responses over a set of 3-D anisotropic models and illustrate that the azimuthal anisotropy has a considerable influence on both the inline and broadside marine CSEM responses but to different extents.

SUMMARY We present a procedure for localizing underground positions using a time-domain inductive electromagnetic (EM) method. The position to be localized is associated with an EM receiver placed inside the Earth. An EM field is generated by one or more transmitters located at known positions at the Earth’s surface. We then invert the EM field data for the receiver positions using a trust-region algorithm. For any given time regime and source–receiver geometry, the propagation of the electromagnetic fields is determined by the electrical conductivity distribution within the Earth. We show that it is sufficient to use a simple 1-D model to recover the receiver positions with reasonable accuracy. Generally, we demonstrate the robustness of the presented approach. Using confidence ellipses and confidence intervals we assess the accuracy of the recovered location data. The proposed method has been extensively tested against synthetic data obtained by numerical experiments. Furthermore, we have successfully carried out a location recovery using field data. The field data were recorded within a borehole in Alberta (Canada) at 101.4 m depth. The recovered location of the borehole receiver differs from the actual location by 0.70 m in the horizontal plane and by 0.82 m in depth.

Among others, the transient electromagnetic method (TEM) is used in investigating volcanic systems. It is capable of imaging conductive structures, such as hydrothermal systems and magmatic pathways, which are of great volcanological interest since they are attributed a key role in volcanic eruptions. Based on this motivation, we aim to investigate the medium depth resistivity structure of Stromboli volcano, Italy. Its persistent activity makes it an ideal target to investigate whether TEM can image changes in the subsurface conductivity structure associated with volcanic eruptions.In order to determine a reasonable measurement configuration, we conduct so-called virtual experiments, i.e., three-dimensional TEM simulations on a digital elevation model. The sophisticated routine combines vectoral finite elements for spatial discretization and a time integration based on a Krylov subspace method. Furthermore, in order to minimize computational cost and run-time, automated adaptive mesh refinement is included.Within the presentation, we introduce our modelling workflow and simulation routine, and link our numerical findings to the results of our field measurement at Stromboli volcano, Italy, in June 2019.