Product catalogue
A multiproxy characterisation of shale brittleness in the Isa Superbasin, northern Australia
Shale gas plays require technology such as fracture stimulation to increase rock permeability and achieve commercial rates of flow. The brittleness of shales are a major control on the ease of fracture stimulation. The Brittleness Index (BI) is a proxy for rock strength, based on geomechanical parameters, and/or rock mineralogy, and provides an indication of hydraulic stimulation effectiveness. Legacy drill core does not always have the geophysical logs needed for assessment of shale brittleness, therefore mineralogical and geochemical derived proxies for shale brittlenesss are often used with varying success. Shales from the Paleoproterozoic Lawn Hill Platform of north-west Queensland and the Northern Territory are known to contain organic-rich sedimentary units with the potential to host shale-gas plays. The Egilabria 2 DW1 well demonstrated a technical success in flowing gas from the Lawn Supersequence and recent geomechanical logging in the Egilabria prospect have demonstrated the presence of brittle rocks favourable for fracture stimulation with similarities between logged geophysics and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) derived brittleness (Bailey et al., 2019). In this study we assess the brittleness of shales from twelve wells across the Isa Superbasin that do not have geophysical log data using XRD, major elemental analyses from X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and mineral carbon (MinC) techniques. The results of this study demonstrate highly variable mineral components between all analysed supersequences. The brittleness index (BI) of the shales derived from XRD ranges from ductile to brittle with zones of brittle shales present in all supersequences. Shale brittleness is controlled by increasing quartz and decreasing clay content with little influence from carbonates. Major elements based on XRF showed moderate to poor correlations to mineral type and the brittleness index was significantly higher than the results calculated by XRD. XRF analyses are not recommended as a proxy for shale brittleness in the Isa Superbasin region. The MinC parameter was highly effective as a proxy for carbonate based on comparisons with XRD derived carbonate concentrations. An important finding in this study is the variations in BI and TOC between supersequences, and within supersequences. This is evident down-hole and spatially across the area sampled. Future work is needed to investigate sweet spots for shale gas production.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2019-10-01T12:00:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2020-05-19T00:55:14
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/131665
Identifier
- Codespace
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Digital Object Identifier
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Publisher Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Author Jarrett, A.J.M.
Author Bailey, A.
Author Hall, L.S.
Author Champion, D.C.
Author Wang, L.
Author Long, I.
Author Webster, T.
Author Byass, J.
Author Hong, Z.
Author Chen, J.
Author Henson, P.
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Jarrett, A.J.M.
Resource provider Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Temporal element
- Time period
- 2017-06-01 2019-10-01
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Project
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EFTF
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- Project
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Exploring For The Future
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- Keywords
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unconventional
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- Keywords
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petroleum
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- Keywords
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Lawn Hill Platform
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- Keywords
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Isa Superbasin
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
-
4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Link to article
Link to article
- Distribution format
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html
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- OnLine resource
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Download the poster (pdf) [2.2MB]
Download the poster (pdf) [2.2MB]
- Distribution format
-
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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Not supplied
Metadata constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/bea8c996-6c8d-4429-806e-281d35200ee1
- Title
-
GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Jarrett, A.J.M.
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Manuscript
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/131665
- Date info (Creation)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
- Date info (Revision)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551