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Abstract

Summary

Stylolites – products of intergranular pressure-solution – are laterally extensive, planar features. They are a common strain localization feature in sedimentary rocks. Their potential impact on regional fluid flow and strength of carbonates has interested geoscientists for almost a century. Prevalent views are that they act as permeability barriers, although laboratory studies are extremely rare. Here we report on a systematic laboratory study of the influence of stylolites on permeability in limestone. Our data demonstrate that the studied stylolites do not act as barriers to fluid flow. When a stylolite occurs perpendicular to the direction of flow, the permeability simply follows the same power law permeability-porosity trend as the stylolite-free material. We show, that the stylolites of this study are not only perforated layers constructed from numerous discontinuous pressure solution seams, but comprise minerals of similar or lower density to the host rock. Our data affirm that stylolites may not impact regional fluid flow as much as previously anticipated. Systematic uniaxial compression tests however show clearly that the presence of stylolites significantly reduces the strength of the limestones, and this whatever the orientation of the stylolite with respect to the loading.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20141167
2014-06-16
2024-04-19

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References

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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20141167
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The Impact of Stylolites on Fluid Flow and Rheology of Porous Carbonates
Conference Proceedings 2014, 1 (2014); https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.20141167
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20141167
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20141167
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