Mineral Modelling
The mineralogy of rocks can be modelled from geochemical data; Chemostrat uses their in house software (ChemMin) to achieve this. If ChemMin is applied to cored sections and the results calibrated using a small subset of QXRD, XRD and petrographic data, it can be used to reconstruct the mineralogy in cuttings sections thereby providing an independent mineral log for entire well sections. This log can be used to aid in interpreting petrophysical logs and ultimately the controls on reservoir quality.
The ability to acquire mineral abundances from the geochemical data also removes the necessity to analyse a large number of samples by XRD.
Our ChemMin package has been developed to provide a quick and reliable means to calculate mineralogy from elemental data. Although it requires initial calibration from mineralogical data, once that is done it can be used on any lithologically similar sequences. Its also provides: a simple means to measured XRD and calculated mineralogy to provide instant checks on calculated mineralogy quality; systematic lithological qualifiers (e.g. dolomitic, calcareous) to lithological assignments; visual representation of mineralogy, Relative Brittleness calculation, instant SandClass Plots).
