Accurate Rock Mineral Characterization With Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) logging is a powerful formation evaluation technology that provides mineralogy-independent porosity and helps distinguish clay-bound water, capillary-bound water, and free fluids. NMR logging tool generally operates at 1H NMR frequency of 2 MHz (magnetic field, B0 ~ 470 Gauss) or lower. At this magnetic field, it is only feasible to detect 1H signal from fluids in pores and rely on the relaxation time variation to characterize fluid and pore types. As magnetic field strength increases, NMR sensitivity increases very dramatically, and NMR signals from solid matrix become easier to be detected in high field. For example, NMR at 600 MHz is about 5,000 times more sensitive than the NMR at 2 MHz. Meanwhile, the spectral resolution of high-field NMR is also greatly increased, and high-field NMR spectrum can resolve the detailed differences between molecule types. Therefore, the high sensitivity and spectral resolution of high-field NMR open a totally new horizon for the characterization of geological samples, especially in organic shale reservoirs, in which organic matter and complex mineralogy remain challenging to be accurately characterized. In this work, we report high-field NMR applications for mineral characterization using a 600-MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a multichannel and Magic-Angle Spinning (MAS) probe. Compared to X-ray diffraction (XRD), which is the primary tool for identifying and quantifying the mineralogy of crystalline compounds in geological samples based on Bragg’s diffraction, NMR can provide more compositional and structural information for noncrystalline compounds due to its sensitivity to local electronic binding structures. Here we demonstrate such an application of high-resolution 27Al NMR to determine the composition and bonding chemistry of 27Al as a fingerprint for a wide range of minerals. The ratio of 27Al at tetrahedral and octahedral binding sites is quantitative and essential to differentiate the dioctahedral and trioctahedral phases. 27Al NMR can also distinguish plagioclase series members ranging from albite to anorthite end members, where Na and Ca atoms can substitute for each other. 27Al NMR can be further combined with 1H, 13C, 29Si, 25Mg, 23Na, and 31P for more detailed mineral determination and clay typing. Our results show that, combined with XRD, this group of high-field NMR spectroscopic methods can greatly improve the accuracy of rock mineral and formation clay characterization in tight-rock and unconventional reservoirs.