Direct Inversion of Measured Hydraulic
and Electric Transport Properties
into a Geometrical Rock Model
Gabor Korvin
The prediction of the
interior structure of sedimentary rocks from measured bulk physical data is an
inverse problem with a huge number of unknowns, which can be solved only
approximately using the Least Mean Squares Error, the Maximum Entropy or the Tikhonov Regularization methods. However, as has been shown
by the success of the Cole-Cole model of the Induced Potential in rocks, or the
Thomeer model of Mercury Injection,
there are cases when an
equivalent rock model with a few degrees of freedom can very well describe the
behavior of a complex geologic system.
In this research we have shown
that:
(a)
The theory of Nabil Akbar
(1994) provides an equivalent rock model which is able to reproduce the
measured hydraulic and electric transport properties,
(b)
The model has only three parameters (average radius r, average distance
between nearest pores d, average throat radius d)
(c)
These three parameters can be directly determined from the measured porosity f,
hydraulic permeability k and cementation exponent m. of the rock,
using simple analytic expressions.
The derivation of these
formulae is based on effective medium theory (Yonezawa
& Cohen, 1983) and on Perez-Rozales' (1982)
non-standard theory of electric conduction in rocks.
Examples will be presented
for the direct inversion of carbonate rock measurements. The mathematically derived rock model will
be shown to well agree with the structure seen in thin sections under the
microscope.