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Pore-Water Flow and Mass Transfer of Solids in Solution in Sedimentary Basins

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Quantitative Diagenesis: Recent Developments and Applications to Reservoir Geology

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIC,volume 453))

Abstract

Solids dissolved in pore water are transported by diffusion and advective flow through sedimentary basins. Diffusive transport is most important over shorter distances (< 100 m), but high-salinity gradients may facilitate significant diffusive transport over hundreds of metres. Flow of meteoric water may produce high fluxes, because rainwater is continuously supplied to the shallow parts of a basin from exposed land areas. Fluvial and shallow-marine sediments are more likely to be flushed by meteoric water than are sandstones of outer shelf facies or turbidites. Dissolution of K-feldspar or mica and precipitation of kaolinite requires constant removal of the released potassium and silica and cannot take place as an isochemical reaction. This reaction can, therefore, serve as a measure of the pore-ater flux, and indicate flow pathways and continuity of permeable sandstone facies.

Compaction-driven flow is limited by the volume of pore water present in the underlying sedimentary sequence. The flow rates and total fluxes produced by compaction are very small and generally are lower than the sedimentation rate, except on a very local scale. The potential for mass transport by such flow is therefore also very small, except for in some cases locally (i.e. along faults). The significance of faults as conducts for mass transport may be overestimated, however. Subsurface pressure data helps to indicate directions of pore-water flow, but the velocity and total flux over geological time are difficult to calculate.

The fact that the overall permeability on a large scale cannot be measured or estimated independently makes modelling for pore water flow very difficult. Significant “import” or “export” of major components like silica and carbonates in sandstones and limestones requires very high pore-water fluxes (107-108 cm3/cm2), which are difficult to attain except very locally by compaction-driven flow. Pore-water flow driven by thermal convection may reach very high fluxes, but the conditions required for Rayleigh convection are rarely met in sedimentary basins.

Non-Raylcigh convection will always occur if ihc isotherms are not completely horizontal, but only when relatively steep isotherms arc formed, for example, by igneous intrusions or around salt domes, will the velocity be high enough to be significant in terms of mass transport of components like silica.

The erratum of this chapter is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0189-9_9"

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  1. Department of Geology, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1047, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Knut Bjørlykke

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  1. Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology, University of Reading, UK

    Andrew Parker  & Bruce W. Sellwood  & 

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Bjørlykke, K. (1994). Pore-Water Flow and Mass Transfer of Solids in Solution in Sedimentary Basins. In: Parker, A., Sellwood, B.W. (eds) Quantitative Diagenesis: Recent Developments and Applications to Reservoir Geology. NATO ASI Series, vol 453. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0189-9_6

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