Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from July 4, 2021

Update on US shale play papers by Patzek et al.

 This is a continuation of the previous list of 29 papers and 1 patent: 30. Zhu, W., Khirevich, S., & Patzek, T. W. (2021). Impact of fracture geometry and topology on the connectivity and flow properties of stochastic fracture networks.  Water Resources Research , 57, e2020WR028652.  https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR028652 Natural fractures usually comprise complex networks and control many physical properties of rocks, including stiffness, strength, and permeability. Therefore, they significantly impact many engineering fields, such as hydrology, waste disposal, geothermal exploitation, and petroleum reservoir exploitation. In a low permeability formation, fractures play a dominant role because the contribution of the matrix to fluid flow is almost negligible. Connectivity of natural and induced fractures thus determines the overall capability of fluid flow of subsurface rocks. Commonly used approaches to evaluate the connectivity (percolation method, connectivity index/field, and