Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

Rock physics templates for integrated analysis of shales considering

their mineralogy, organic matter and pore uids
R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos n
Instituto Mexicano del Petrleo, Eje Central Lzaro Crdenas 152, San Bartolo Atepehuacan, Delegacin Gustavo A. Madero, 07730 Mxico, DF, Mexico

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 10 October 2014
Received in revised form
22 August 2015
Accepted 9 November 2015
Available online 10 November 2015

Mudstones are characterized by considering their mineralogy, organic matter and pore uids simultaneously by means of effective properties calculated using the self-consistent method. The self-consistent
equations are solved in order to get the effective properties, Lame's parameters and bulk density. With
them, the P- and S-wave velocities are calculated for all types of shale rocks. These results are in accordance with those reported by Pickett (1963), Leslie and Mons (1982) and Castagna et al. (1985) for
their particular cases. In this work, the effect of pore uid and organic matter is added and can be
observed in the rock physics templates of the VP VS and . These templates represent the
straightforward integration of multi-data generated by the core and well-log analysis, reservoir studies
and geosciences; namely, geophysics, petrology, petrophysics and geology. This integrated information is
useful for uid discrimination, well placement and stages of fracking in the unconventional reservoirs.
Also, the modeling results are applicable to identify commercial shales like Barnett-1, Fort St. John and
Haynesville-1.
& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Unconventional reservoirs
Shale characterization
Self-consistent method
Rock physics templates

1. Introduction
Ternary diagrams are the easiest formal tool for correlating
three mineral constituents, and they are widely used because any
complication is shattering during the process of rock mineral interpretation of sedimentary rocks. In this research, rock physics
templates based on VP VS and ternary templates were developed applying the self-consistent method to obtain the effective properties. This mathematical model has the virtue of considering the full-coupled analysis of the elastic properties for
heterogeneous composites (Sabina and Willis, 1988). The shale
system is basically composed of mineral-solid frame and inclusions of organic matter and uids. The classical ternary plot based
on Clay (CL), Quartz (QR) and Carbonate (CA) is utilized for describing the solid frame of mudstones and the lithofacie variations
in the unconventional reservoirs. Additionally to these three minerals, the elastic properties of rock systems composed by mudstones and kerogen (organic matter), dry gas, sea water and oil
saturating the total porosity at values of 10%, 20%, and 25% are
discussed. Therefore, the templates are a useful tool for the integrated analysis of the multidata generated by petrology, geophysical and geological modeling.
The mudstone mineralogy is very similar for shale because
n

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ovaldivi@imp.mx (O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2015.11.009
0920-4105/& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

shale rock is considered as a laminated and ssile mudstone. So,

we are using mudstone and shale in the same way according to
the mineral classication of ne-grained sedimentary rocks. This
practical assertion is valid because the effective rock elastic response is mainly caused by the volumetric fraction of their mineral content. Also, the literature is rich with many results based
on core and log-well studies for discriminating lithotypes as a
direct function of the mineral data location inside the CLQRCA
ternary diagram (Wang and Carr, 2012; Gamero-Diaz et al., 2013).
For instance, Eagle Ford, Marcellus, Haynesville and Barnett approximately cover the entire possible region for shale-gas and
shale-oil resource plays, Fig. 1. However, there are at least nine
well-dened lithotypes: clay dominated lithotype, silica-rich argillaceous mudstone, carbonate-rich argillaceous mudstone, silica dominated lithotype, clay-rich siliceous mudstone, carbonaterich siliceous mudstone, carbonate dominated lithotype, clay-rich
carbonate mudstone, and silica-rich carbonate mudstone, Table 1.
All of them are associated with numerical ranges of mineral volumetric fractions.
The combinations of pure mineral and bulk densities are used for
modeling the effective elastic properties of source rocks applying the
self-consistent scheme. Recently, this method has been applied to
characterize the complete set of dominated lithotypes of shale by
means of dispersion and attenuation of P- and S-wave (ValdiviezoMijangos and Nicols-Lpez, 2014). In this work, this method is used
to get the static case of the effective properties and all physical
quantities Vp, Vs, etc. are calculated with them to generate the VP VS

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R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

Fig. 1. (a) Ternary diagram from mineral laboratory data, (b) general classication of mudstones. Modied from Wang and Carr (2012), Gamero-Diaz et al. (2013), and
Valdiviezo-Mijangos and Nicols-Lpez (2014).

and ternary templates, Figs. 26. After solving the self-conV

sistent equations (Eqs. (10b12b)) and calculating ( VP ), excellent
s

agreement and consistency with widely accepted values for this ratio
(Pickett., 1963; Leslie and Mons, 1982; Castagna et al., 1985), for quartz
(1.5), clean sand (1.6), very limy sand (1.7), dolomite (1.8), limestone
(1.9), calcite and clay (2.0), Fig. 2 is observed. It is well known that
shales could exhibit different geometries dened by the aspect ratio
(ar); i.e., arr0.05 denotes layers, 0.05oarr0.5 to lenses and
0.5oarr1 is for patches (Sone and Zoback, 2013), herein as an approximation to model mudstones and shale rocks, the patches are
chosen with aspect ratio equal to 1. In addition, the argillaceous, siliceous and calcareous lithofacies are placed in both ternary diagrams

for qualitative and quantitative description of true mineral data from

Barnett-1, Fort St. John, Haynesville-1 and Eagle Ford-1, Figs. 3 and 4.
At this point, the above mentioned describes how geoscientists
can obtain the mineralogy input data for applying the self-consistent method. At the same time, the potential applications of
VP VS and ternary templates for discriminating lithofacies
and elastic responses of commercial shales are demonstrated.
Now, another contribution, which deals with the effects of kerogen, dry gas, sea water and heavy oil saturating the total porosity
( 0%, 10%, 20%, and 25%) shall be exposed. The total porosity is
based on conventional log interpretation. The 0% identies
solid frame composed by any mineral combination of CL, QR, and

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

35

Table 1
Classication of mudstones based on volumetric fractions of Quartz (QR), Carbonate (CA) and Clay (CL).
Classication of mudstonesa (Fig. 1.)

Quartz (vol %)

Carbonate (vol %)

Clay (vol %)

Similarity with other mineral classications

Argillaceous mudstone
Clay dominated lithotype
Silica-rich argillaceous mudstone
Carbonate-rich argillaceous mudstone
Siliceous mudstone
Silica dominated lithotype
Clay-rich siliceous mudstone
Carbonate-rich siliceous mudstone
Calcareous mudstone
Carbonate dominated lithotype
Clay-rich carbonate mudstone
Silica-rich carbonate mudstone

050
020
2050
010
50100
80100
5080
5080
050
80100
010
2050

050
020
010
2050
050
020
010
2050
50100
020
5080
5080

50100
80100
5080
5080
050
020
2050
010
050
020
2050
010

Clay shales
Claystone
Sandy shale, shale
Marlstone, calcareous shale
Sandstone
Clean sand
Shaly sand
Calcareous sand
Carbonate
Dolomite, limestone, chalk
Marlstone, shaly carbonate
Sandy carbonate

Shales are usually laminated and ssile mudstones.

Fig. 2. VP and Vs ternary template associated with the general classication of

mudstones (Table 1).

CA. The other results ( 10%, 20%, and 25%) show that the lesser
dispersive shale system is for kerogen and the more dispersive
shale system is for dry gas saturating the pore space. This integrated information is useful for uid discrimination, well placement and stages of fracking in the unconventional reservoirs.
This work is divided in: rst, the mineral classication of
mudstones; second, a brief description of the self-consistent
method for obtaining the static self-consistent equations; third,
the application of the results obtained to generate the ternary
templates that consider mineralogy, organic matter and pore uid;
and nally the conclusions.

2. Mineral classication of mudstones

In order to classify mudstones, there are several criteria and
most are combinations among themselves. These include texture,
ssility, tectonic association and environment of deposition, mineral composition, color, chemical composition and degree of
metamorphism (Picard, 1971). This research chooses mudstone
classication in terms of mineral composition based on Clay (CL),
Quartz (QR) and Carbonate (CA), according to Fig. 1. The clay group
includes all argillaceous minerals as illite, smectite, chlorite and
kaolinite, quartz represents siliceous minerals like albite and

Fig. 3. VpVs ternary template denoting the integration of mineralogy, lithofacies

and elastic response considering true mineral data from Barnett-1, Fort St. John,
Haynesville-1 and Eagle Ford-1 (Table 3).

feldspars; and lastly carbonate indicates calcareous minerals as

calcite, dolomite, siderite and aragonite. For convenience, in this
research laminated and ssile mudstones are closely related to
shales due to their very similar mineral content.
The mineral ternary diagram is easy to understand (Fig. 1.), the
triangle vertexes (1.0) represent the pure minerals. It means that
the rock sample consists of one-hundred percent clay, quartz or
carbonate. In nature, this exists only at very small local scales;
therefore, these regions have limited practical interest and they are
worthless in most oilgas reservoirs. Along the sides of the triangle
there are proportional scales labeled as 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8. Among
them, it is possible to draw several parallel lines from one side to
another side of the mineral ternary plot. The result is many smaller
triangles that are directly related to the mineralogical variations and
lithofacies observed in thin sections, cuttings, core specimen and
wireline logs. Several commercial shales like Eagle ford, Marcellus,
Haynesville and Barnett have mixed shale rocks displayed by the
core triangle in the ternary plot. Additionally, several lithofacies can
be found in the same shale strata causing the shale variability. At
the beginnings of shale-oil and shale-gas exploitation, these high
heterogeneities caused some confusion during the target selection
and well placement for organic shale reservoirs.
Nowadays, based on Fig. 1, geoscientists can easily elucidate the

36

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

where Cn +1 is the tensor of elastic moduli and n +1 is the density of

the matrix where different types of inclusions, an inclusion of type
r having tensor of elastic moduli Cr and density r , r =1,2,, n are
embedded. Each inclusion of type r is of the same size and shape
and n +1 is dened as follows:
n+ 1

r = 1 r = 1

(3)

Both matrix and inclusion are considered as isotropic, with Cr

characterized by bulk modulus r and shear modulus r . The
corresponding symbolic notation used by Hill (1965) is
Cr =(3r ,2r ). This is very useful because the product of isotropic
two tensors A and B dened by A=(3A,2A )and B=(3B,2B ) is
AB=((3A )(3B ), (2A )(2B )). This fact will be explained in detail in
Appendix A.
t and I of Eqs. (1) and (2) are computed from the
Terms Sx, M
Green functions for an isotropic homogeneous media, Eqs. (A.6),
(A.10), and (A.13). Therefore, their denitions are:

Fig. 4. LamdaRhoMuRho ternary template denoting the integration of mineralogy, lithofacies and elastic response considering true mineral data from Barnett-1,
Fort St. John, Haynesville-1 and Eagle Ford-1 (Table 3).

numerical range of mineral volumetric fraction to classify mudstones (Table 1). Additionally, when there is evidence of laminate
and ssile bearing the mudstones are considered shales. Moreover,
we are presenting some similarity with other classical rock
classications such as marls, claystone, dolomite, sandstone, and
limestone; however, keep in mind that they are not the same. This
fact contributes to decrease the misunderstanding during the
process of lithology discrimination for unconventional reservoir.
Some slight variation of these numerical ranges (Table 1) is well
accepted during the interpretation of lithofacie sequence, given
that some mineral reports of shales depend on laboratory technique, oil-well tool calibration, eld practice, etc. Also, it is very
important to take the country standards of the unconventional
reservoir operators in account. For instance, dominated lithotypes
are commonly related to solid rocks with pure mineral fractions
greater than seventy or eighty percent. However, any resulting
mineral combination can be modeled by the self-consistent
method.

3. Self-consistent equations

0 = n + 1 +

r = 1 r hr (k) hr (k) ( Cr Cn+ 1) I + Sx(r )

n

r = 1 r hr (k) hr (k)( r

(4)

( M t )ij = 31

(5)

I=

ij 3 Vp 2Vs
0

16 2a3
( 1)
3k 2

(6)

where a is the inclusion radius, k =/ and =Vp or Vs is required.

Eqs. (4) and (5) are dened in Sabina and Willis (1988, Eqs. (3.5));
corresponds to Eq. (A.7) and is expressed as:

3 ( 1 ik a)
sin ( k a) k a cos ( k a) eik a
3
( k a)

(7)

where

0 + 4 /3 1/2
0
Vp =

(8)

and

1/2
Vs = 0
0

(9)

Hence the self-consistent equations with n =1, i.e., for just one
inclusion are:

The self-consistent equations used in this work were developed

by Sabina and Willis (1988). They generalized the simple static
equation of Budiansky and O'Connell (1976) to dynamic problems
using the Galerkin approximation. A few equations are shown
below to understand the complete idea of the method; more details are presented in Sabina and Willis (1988). Although shales
could exhibit different geometry shapes dened by aspect ratio
(ar); i.e., ar r0.05 denotes layer, 0.05 oar r0.5 to lenses and
0.5 oar r1 is for patches (Sone and Zoback, 2013), herein as an
approximation to model shale, the patches are chosen with aspect
ratio equal to 1. The self-consistent equations for an isotropic
matrix containing isotropic spherical inclusion are as follow:

C0 = Cn + 1 +

2Vp
Vp
p
1
Sx =
,
+

0
3 0 + 4 0 5 3 0 + 4 0

0 = 2 +

1h1 (k ) h1 (k )( 1 2 )
1 + 3 ( 1 0 ) Vp/( 3 0 + 4 0 )

(10)

1h1 (k ) h1 (k )( 1 2 )
1 + 2 ( 1 0 ) 2 0 Vp + ( 3 0 + 4 0 ) Vs / 5 0 ( 3 0 + 4 0 )

0 = 2 +

(11)

1h1 (k ) h1 (k )( 1 2 )

1 + ( 1 0 ) 3 Vp 2Vs /(30)

(12)

where

t(r ) 1
n + 1 ) I + M

0 = 2 +

(1)

(2)

h1 (k ) =

3 (sin ka ka cos ka )
(ka)3

(13)

Eq. (13) corresponds to Sabina and Willis (1988, Eq. (3.17)) for a
spherical inclusion. Now, the limit static case, i.e., when lim h1 (k )=1
k0

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

37

Fig. 5. VpVs ternary templates including the effects of kerogen, dry gas, sea water and heavy oil.

and =1 will be used to generate the next ternary templates,

(Figs. 26).
The corresponding self-consistent equations for n inclusions
with different concentrations are:

0 = n + 1 +

0 = n + 1 +

r=1

(10b)

r ( r n + 1 )

r = 1

0 = n + 1 +

r ( r n + 1)
1 + 3 ( r 0 ) / ( 3 0 + 4 0 )

1 + 2 ( r 0 ) 2 0 + ( 3 0 + 4 0 ) / 5 0 ( 3 0 + 4 0 )
n

r = 1 r ( r

n + 1 )

(11b)
(12b)

The above Eqs. (10b)(12b) are the same that Sabina and Willis,
1988 obtained for the limit static case. Eqs. (10b) and (11b) must
be solved simultaneously using a numerical method, for example
the xed point. With the effective properties 0 , 0 and 0
( 0=02/30 ) , it is possible to calculate the compressional and
shear waves (Eqs. (8) and (9)) considering n inclusions which can

be minerals or pore uids. More details on how to solve the nonlinear equation systems taking into account several inclusions are
found in Valdiviezo-Mijangos (2002).
It is well-known that modeling results naturally include uncertainties whose propagation denes potential elastic scenarios
or deviations of lithology sequences. Some works suggest carrying
out a tting process between numerical modeling and measured
data; usually the reported percent error is around 75% or less
(Castagna et al., 1985). However, uncertainty propagation may be
added in the near future for a better understanding of the whole
characterization of shales. The following section gives numerical
results of different combinations of shale composition and their
maturity with uid inclusions.

4. Applications of mudstone ternary templates

A key stage before analyzing oilgas shale applications is the

38

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

Fig. 6. LambdaRhoMuRho ternary templates including the effects of kerogen, dry gas, sea water and heavy oil.

validation of modeling results from Eqs. (1)(13) with other

measured or predicted data of VP relationships based on different
Vs

approaches (Pickett, 1963; Leslie and Mons, 1982; Castagna et al.,

1985), as can be seen in Fig. 2. The main goal is to reproduce the
published constant trend lines of

( ) for quartz (1.5), clean sand

VP
Vs

(1.6), very limy sand (1.7), dolomite (1.8), limestone (1.9), calcite
and clay (2.0). These trend lines are in very good agreement with
some proportional lines of the ternary plot; i. e., clean sand is close
to QR70% and limy sand to QR50%. Therefore, the VP linear reVs

lationships are the basis to include the effect of mineral fraction

and the total porosity saturated with kerogen, heavy oil, sea water
and dry gas. It means that we are coupling the mineral ternary
diagram (Fig. 1) with the corresponding values of VP and Vs using
the horizontal and vertical axis, respectively (Fig. 2).
The mineral elastic properties shown in Table 2 are utilized for
calculating the effective elastic properties of mudstones. The result
is the elastic-response characterization of the whole sedimentary
rocks formed by a myriad of possible mineral combinations. This

fact is very important for the proper characterization of unconventional reservoir. By itself, the next VP and Vs ternary template (Fig. 2) represents an important contribution of our research.
After the validation of numerical modeling results, we establish
the scheme of a holistic approach to discriminate ssile and laminated mudstones, namely shales. It is supported by the integration of several geosciences with the well-log and core techniques.
The well-known multidata generated from studies of geophysics,
geology, petrology, geo-mechanics, and reservoir (Close et al., 2012),
can be straightforward placed into both VP VS and ternary
templates for shales. Lambda parameter is used because it is a
measure of incompressibility and Mu parameter represents the
shear rigidity. They are also independent from each other. In addition, the bulk density relates the mineral volumetric fraction of
the shale lithofacies (Eq. (12b)). Moreover, the next paragraphs include a discussion of the effect on the elastic properties as a result
of the kerogen and different pore uids saturating the total porosity
( 10%, 20%, 25%), Figs. 5 and 6.
Now, in order to describe how geological and geophysical

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

Table 2
Density and elastic properties or mineral and pore uids utilized in the self-consistent modeling.
Mineral and pore
uid

Density
(g/cm3)

Vp (km/s) Vs
(km/s)

Reference

Clay (CL)
Carbonate (CA)
Quartz (QR)
Kerogen (KE)
Heavy oil (HO)

2.6
2.71
2.65
1.3
0.97

3.41
6.64
6.05
2.25
1.29

1.64
3.44
4.09
1.45

Dry gas (DG)

0.05

0.505

Sea water (WA)

1.04

1.5

Mavko et al. (2003)

Mavko et al. (2003)
Mavko et al. (2003)
Mavko et al. (2003)
Batzle and Wang
(1992)
Batzle and Wang
(1992)
Batzle and Wang
(1992)

modeling are integrated with petrology, petrophysics and rock

physics, VP VS and ternary templates applied to four commercial shales, namely Eagle Ford-1, Barnett-1, Haynesville-1, Fort
St. John (Sone and Zoback, 2013) are presented in Figs. 3 and 4.
There, the relationships among mineral composition, lithofacies,
rock formation and elastic properties for shale rocks are clearly
established. The corresponding region for each one is easily dened by drawing proportional lines of mineral volumetric fraction
displayed in the ternary plots, (Table 3). There are at least three
proportional lines for dening each of the four shale reservoirs.
The samples from Barnett-1 and Fort St. John match the group of
siliceous mudstone and sub group of clay-rich siliceous mudstone.
Haynesville-1 shale rock is mixed into the groups of siliceous and
calcareous mudstones and sub-groups of clay-rich siliceous mudstone and clay-rich carbonate mudstone. In the case of Eagle Ford-1,
it is clearly related to the group of calcareous mudstones and to the
sub groups of silica-rich and clay-rich carbonate mudstones. In the
near future works, several cases of shale characterization will be
developed applying these ternary plots.
At this point, we are able to describe qualitatively the lithology
and lithofacies using the mineral volumetric combination from the
shale rock samples using the VP VS and ternary templates.
The next step is to get hard data of the elastic properties needed
for the geophysical modeling and rock physics. They are estimated
and constrained by applying the self-consistent Eqs. (10b12b)
considering the complete set of mineral variations. Table 3 shows
the numerical ranges of shale-rock density, compressional and
shear wave velocities, lambdarho and murho. Logically, these
data must be integrated with seismic attributes, oil-well and core
data to improve the process of seismic interpretation of surface,
horizons and geobodies in a volume.
Finally, Figs. 5 and 6 are related to the main concerns of an
unconventional reservoir project, the evaluation of the quality of
source rocks and type of uid saturating the pores. Here, VP VS and
ternary plots are focused on the elastic properties of mudstones plus kerogen (KE), dry gas (DG), sea water (WA) and heavy
oil (HO) occupying the total pore space. All of them result from
full-coupled modeling of independent elastic contributions of the
pure minerals and pore uids (Eqs. (10b12b)). The effect of

39

organic matter (kerogen) is analyzed separately due to its contrasting elastic properties with the clay mineral (Table 2). Total
porosity is based on conventional log interpretation and is plotted
for 10%, 20%, and 25%.
Herein, total porosity assumed equal to 0% is considered for
solid matrix of lithofacies, which consist of any possible mineral
variations inside the upper triangle. It is bounded by mineral
vertexes calculated using the data from Table 2. However, it is
strongly recommended to use mineral core data of the specic
unconventional resource plays. The lowest triangle ( 25%) is
dened by vertexes corresponding to QR75% KE25%, CA75%
KE25%, and CL75% KE25% for mudstone plus kerogen (organic
matter); QR75% DG25%, CA75% DG25%, and CL75% DG25%, for
mudstone with gas lling the total porosity; QR75% WA25%,
CA75% WA25%, and CL75% WA25% for mudstone with sea water
saturating the pores; and nally, QR75% HO25%, CA75% HO25%,
and CL75% HO25% for mudstone with heavy oil saturating the
pores. The bounding vertex coordinates in terms of (VP , VS ) are
(4.97, 3.28), (5.15, 2.87), (2.95, 1.56) for kerogen; (5, 3.2), (5, 2.84),
(2.64, 1.41) for dry gas; (4, 3.1), (4.95, 2.69), (2.67, 1.3) for sea
water; and (4.8, 3.11), (4.93, 2.7), (2.6, 1.3) for heavy oil. On the
other hand, in Fig. 6 the corresponding coordinates in terms of
( ,) are (16.93, 58.42), (57, 46.3), (19.83, 12.73) for kerogen; (14,
43), (40.22, 33.85), (12.49, 8.27) for dry gas; (19.45, 48.68), (52.68,
38.24), (18.5, 8.26) for sea water; and nally, (18.25, 48.21), (50.17,
37.87), (16.48, 8.15) for heavy oil, respectively. Although both VP VS
and ternary plots are presented separately for kerogen, dry
gas, sea water and heavy oil, the self-consistent model is not restricted to such separation, meaning that other shale systems can
be modeled applying the same self-consistent scheme; i. e. mature
source shale composed by dry gas, heavy oil and multi-mineral
solid matrix. However, visual discrimination using Figs. 5 and 6 is
difcult; therefore numerical values of vertexes are provided.
Since some numerical values exhibit very small differences, it is
difcult to visually discriminate the uids. Therefore, building
mineral and pore uid trend lines from provided numerical data
helps to identify uids in shale.
The above results are consistent with the well-known rules of
thumb, such as (1) the lesser dispersive shale system is related to
the case when the kerogen occupies the pores and it could denote
immature shales. (2) Clearly, shales containing dry gas in the pore
space are more dispersive than others. This fact could be associated with unconventional reservoirs at probable conditions
of peak of gas and large volume of gas in place. (3) The
intermediate dispersive shale systems are water and heavy oil
saturated shales. These last two shale systems exhibit very similar
elastic response because the elastic properties and densities of
constituents are not contrasting among them, Table 2. Also, it is
noticed that the region of siliceous mudstone (QR Z50%) goes
vertically on the axis; and the regions of calcareous (CA Z50%)
and argillaceous (CL Z50%) mudstone moves horizontally on the
axis. Therefore, our research provides the possibility to carry
out quantitative analysis for each rule of thumb.
Bear in mind that the more techniques used, including the one

Table 3
Numerical range of multidata for samples of shale rocks displayed in Figs. 3 and 4.
Geology Lithologies

Petrology, Petrophysics Mineralogy

Shale

Quartz (vol %)

Barnett-1
5052
Haynesville-1
3235
Eagle Ford-1
2229
Fort St. John
5460
After Sone and Zoback (2013)

Geophysics, Rock physics Elastic properties

Carbonate (vol %)

Clay (vol %)

sh (g/cm3)

03
2022
4654
35

3639
3639
1221
3239

2.622.64
4.434.90
2.632.65
4.574.98
2.662.68
5.185.94
2.622.64
4.555.03
Data estimated from ternary plots

VP (km/s)

VS (km/s)

(GPa g/cm3)

(GPa g/cm3)

2.592.99
39.2848.82
46.5759.45
2.562.88
53.0661.88
45.8358.38
2.873.43
73.3896.61
58.3784.09
2.703.11
37.9848.04
50.6067.14
realized by self-consistent scheme, Figs. 3 and 4

40

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

under discussion, the greater accuracy will be achieved in the

shale characterization. We believe that the issue of the applicability can be dealt with when combining this method with others
if greater accuracy is called for. Regarding the plasticity characteristics, reference is made to Figs. 5 and 6 that show that the
elastic region of argillaceous shale is smaller than the calcareous
and siliceous shales; this region is further reduced due to the
porosity.
An easy example based on shale well data is shown by Appendix
B. Field data used represents the typical formation of a siliceous
unconventional reservoir. In this example, the templates and eld
data display the usability of the direct model. Future work would
address to the classic inverse problem together with the models
used here; also widely address the propagation of errors in the
estimation of model parameters.
The next steps of this research shall be addressed to more
applications in oil eld development; such unconventional reservoir delimitation, seismic inversion, and of course including
different shale plays in similar way to Appendix B.

The elastic moduli 0 and 0 and density 0 may be complex but

are assumed to be such that the square roots in (A.3) can both be
chosen with positive real parts and negative imaginary parts so
that when is real and positive, (A.1) corresponds to outgoing
waves that decay as x increases.
Considering rst the term M t for a spherical inclusion of radius
a , (patches with aspect ratio equal to 1) the integral

5. Conclusion

Mudstones are characterized by considering their mineralogy,

organic matter and pore uids, and at the same time by means of
effective properties calculated using the self-consistent method.
They are classied based on three pure minerals: quartz, clay and
carbonate. The effective properties calculated are the bulk density
and Lame's parameters. After that, the P- and S-wave velocities are
predicted for all types of shale rocks. These results are in accordance to those reported by Pickett (1963), Leslie and Mons
(1982), Castagna et al. (1985).
The developed ternary templates represent the straightforward
integration of multidata generated by the core and well-log analysis, reservoir studies and geosciences; namely, geophysics, petrology, petrophysics and geology. Also, the modeling results are
applicable for identifying commercial shales like Barnett-1, Fort St.
John and Haynesville-1, Figs. 3 and 4. The next steps of this research can be directed to nd more applications, such as seismic
inversion, and unconventional reservoir delimitation and of course
including different shale plays.

ik x x

x < a dx x < a dx ex x

I=

(A.4)

where

k =

(A.5)

and =Vp or Vs . The evaluation of (A.4) is elementary and gives

16 2a3
( 1)
3k 2

I=

(A.6)

where

3 ( 1 ik a)
sin ( k a) k a cos ( k a) eik a .
3
( k a)

(A.7)

Another required term is

2

Jij =

ik x x

x < a dx x < a dx xi xj ex x

(A.8)

This is isotropic and so it may be evaluated as one-third of its

trace, multiplied by ij . Since the term in brackets is 4 times the
fundamental solution of a Helmholtz equation, the result is:

Jij =

1
ij 4a3 + k 2 I or
3

Jij = ij

16 2a3
.
9

(A.9)

It follows that

( M t )ij = 31

ij 3 Vp 2Vs .
0

(A.10)

The term Sx can be evaluated similarly. It is an isotropic, fourthorder tensor with the same symmetries as C0 , with the notation

C0 = ( 3 0, 2 0 ).

(A.11)

It follows that
Acknowledgments

3 0 =
The authors are thankful to Instituto Mexicano del Petrleo for
giving permission to publish the article.

Appendix A. The kernel functions

Green's function G for the isotropic homogeneous matrix material takes the form

1 ei x / Vs
1 2 ei x / Vp ei x / Vs
ij 2
Gij (x) =
2

40
x

Vs x
xi xj

(A.1)

1
( C0 )iikk ,
3

3 0 + 10 0 = ( C0 )ijij .

(A.12)

The terms corresponding to 30 , 20 for Sx may thus be obtained by considering (Sx )iikk and (Sx )ijij . The details of the calculation are omitted but the result is

Vp
2Vp
V
1
Sx =
,
+ s .
3

+
4

5
3

+
4

0
0
0
0

(A.13)

Eqs. (1)(13) and (A.1)(A.13) are compiled to describe the

elastic behavior of shale plays by means of self-consistent
equations.

where the elastic tensor C0 is:

( C0 )ijkl = 0 ij kl + 0 ik jl + il jk

2
ij kl

Appendix B. Application of VP VS and ternary plots

(A.2)

the velocity Vp and Vs are respectively:

+ 4 1/2
0
3 0
Vp =

1/2
Vs = 0
0

(A.3)

See Fig. B1
The following gures visually and numerically show typical
data from a well-log data of Vp, Vs and bulk density of siliceous
shales that has a carbonated body where the numeric congruence
(75%) of the new ternary diagrams with the hard data is appreciated. Distant and much dispersed points are insignicant for the

R. Nicols-Lpez, O.C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 137 (2016) 3341

41

Fig. B1. VpVs and LambdaRhoMuRho ternary templates modeling well data.

shale characterization in this study.

A combination of Vp, Vs and bulk density data in the left gure
yields the right-hand side gure. Following, well data from the
above gure are given in the ternary diagram and the
congruence of the siliceous shales can also be seen with a carbonated body in the base; this formation behaves as a natural barrier
for hydraulic fracturing. The right hand side gure offers more
clarication compared to the one on the left. This type of diagram
allows to note more easily that the well data belong to a siliceous
formation. Ordinary petro-physical studies can be added to enhance details.

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