title: Deformation-assisted fluid percolation in rock salt.
abstract: Deep geological storage sites for nuclear waste are commonly located in rock salt to ensure hydrological isolation from groundwater. The low permeability of static rock salt is due to a percolation threshold. However, deformation may be able to overcome this threshold and allow fluid flow. We confirm the percolation threshold in static experiments on synthetic salt samples with x-ray microtomography. We then analyze wells penetrating salt deposits in the Gulf of Mexico. The observed hydrocarbon distributions in rock salt require that percolation occurred at porosities considerably below the static threshold due to deformation-assisted percolation. Therefore, the design of nuclear waste repositories in salt should guard against deformation-driven fluid percolation. In general, static percolation thresholds may not always limit fluid flow in deforming environments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 200 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Soheil
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghanbarzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 201 East 24th Street, Austin, TX 78712, USA. mhesse@jsg.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Marc A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Hesse
authors.affiliation: Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 200 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Maša
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Prodanović
authors.affiliation: Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Gardner