JOURNAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA
Vol.94, September 2019, pp.319-327
Effect of Kerogen and TOC on Seismic Characterization of Lower
Cretaceous Shale Gas Plays in Lower Indus Basin, Pakistan
Perveiz Khalid1*, Jahanzeb Qureshi2, Zia Ud Din1, Sami Ullah1 and Javed Sami2
1
Institute of Geology, University of the Punjab, 54590 Lahore, Pakistan.
2
Department of Space Science, University of the Punjab, 54590 Lahore, Pakistan
E-mail: perveiz.geo@pu.edu.pk*; ziauddinpu@yahoo.com; samiullah1101@gmail.com; jzebqureshipu@gmail.com;
javedsami_pu@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Unconventional energy resources such as shale gas are
becoming an increasingly important exploration and production
targets. Organic-rich shales are widely distributed in the
sedimentary basins of Pakistan. Among these shales, organic-rich
Sembar shale of the lower Cretaceous age is a strong potential
shale gas play in the lower Indus basin of Pakistan. However,
seismic and petrophysical characterization of this organic-rich
shale is not well understood because of the complex dependency
of the seismic and petrophysical properties of these rocks on
mineralogical, heterogeneities, organic matter, clay content
and thermal maturity. Therefore, to understand the seismic and
elastic character of Sembar shales, rock physics modeling and
seismic attribute analysis have been done. The results reveal that
in-situ mineral composition, total organic content (TOC) and
thermal maturity can influence significantly in inverse order to
the seismic and elastic parameters of organic-rich shale. This
work will facilitate the workers to interpret shale gas play and
develop the exploration and production strategies for gas
exploration and production.
INTRODUCTION
Major production of natural gas is from conventional reservoirs,
however, since last decade a significant amount of gas has been
recovered from unconventional reservoirs because of advancement in
exploration and production technology and high demand of gas (Lüning
and Kolonic, 2003). The unconventional reservoirs such as organic-
rich shales, tight sands, coal bed methane, etc. have a huge amount of
hydrocarbon gas and are widely distributed in different sedimentary
basins of the world (Boyer et al., 2011). Among these unconventional
reservoirs, shale gas is the major unconventional reservoir that is
present in a very large amount as compared to other unconventional
reservoirs. This important unconventional reservoir is characterized
by very low permeability (< 1 milli darcy) and sufficiently good porosity
(Holditch, 2006; Alexander et al., 2011; Sunjay, 2011; Das and
Chatterjee, 2018). In the last few years, shale gas reservoirs have
emerged as an explorable energy source. However, the extraction of
gas from these reservoirs is still challenging. The departure of seismic
and elastic behavior of shale gas from conventional gas reservoirs is
one of the distinguishing features (Passey et al., 2010; Sunjay, 2011).
Due to this unconventional behavior, the generalized characterization
of the shale gas reservoir is very crucial. This unconventional behavior
is due to a very large variation in mineralogy, total organic carbon
(TOC), thermal maturity, geological and depositional setting (Roth,
2010; Zhu et al., 2012). Thus, it is difficult to obtain dynamic properties
of reservoir and, therefore, to characterize gas reserves. Conventional
rock physics models do not concentrate on the anisotropy present in
the shale gas reservoirs. However, the rock physics model for organic
0016-7622/2019-94-3-319/$ 1.00 © GEOL. SOC. INDIA | DOI: 10.1007/s12594-019-1312-8
shales requires to focus on the anisotropy resulting from various
orientations of clay minerals and pores in the shale rock matrix
(Carcione, 2000; Wenk et al., 2007; Lonardelli et al., 2007; Dewhurst
et al., 2011; Slatt and Abousleiman, 2011).
The impact of total organic contents (TOC) and volume of kerogen
on seismic response of organic-rich shale have received more attention
(Aziz et al., 2018). Several workers tried to model the effect of these
parameters on seismic properties of organic shale with the help of
rock physics model (Carcione et al., 2011; Vernik and Milovac, 2011;
Li et al., 2015; Aziz et al., 2018). Zhu et al. (2012) proposed an
improved rock physics model for shale gas plays. The impact of volume
of kerogen on the anisotropy of shales was studied by Sayers (2013).
Amplitude versus offset analysis of shale gas plays was done by Zhu
et al. (2011) and Sayers (2013) on the basis of proposed rock physics
models, especially for organic-rich shales. Meanwhile, Sun et al. (2013)
modeled seismic responses of shale gas reservoirs based on anisotropic
wave equations. Kerogen content has a significant impact on the
seismic properties due to its low density (Passey et al., 2010). However,
the combined impact of TOC and volume of kerogen on seismic
signatures of shale gas play has not been well investigated. The
objective of this work is to analyze the combined effect of TOC and
volume of kerogen on seismic properties of organic-rich shales.
Almost each sedimentary basin of Pakistan has thick deposits of
organic-rich shales (Kazmi and Jan, 1997; Ahmed et al., 2013). The
Indus basin is the largest basin of Pakistan, which covers about 60%
area of the country (Khalid et al., 2014). This basin is classified into
three parts: upper, lower and central. The well and seismic data indicate
that organic-rich shales of various ages are present into all the three
parts of the Indus basin (Kazmi and Jan, 1997). According to an
estimate, the country has been bestowed with more than 200 TCF
(trillion cubic feet) of unconventional gas reservoirs within the organic-
rich shales. The organic-rich shales of Sembar and lower Goru
formations are widespread in the middle and lower Indus basin of
Pakistan (Ahmed et al., 2013). In the middle Indus basin, dry gas is
producing from these shales (Haider et al., 2012). Sembar shale is a
proven source rock and potential shale gas play in the basin because it
fulfills all the requirements – TOC, level of maturity, burial depth,
thickness and brittleness – to be act as a shale gas play (Ahmed et al.,
2013). However, the impact of mineralogy, clay content, TOC, volume
of kerogen etc. on seismic signatures of shales is not studied until
now. Only Aziz et al. (2018) proposed a workflow to estimate TOC in
Sembar shales from seismic reflection data in a particular site. Thus,
exploration of shale gas plays requires a deeper understanding of
relationship between mineralogy, TOC, volume of kerogen and elastic
properties of organic shales. A rock physics model is fundamental to
establish and understand the relationship between these parameters
(Khalid et al., 2016; Khalid et al., 2018). To see the impact of TOC
and volume of kerogen on seismic signatures of shales the shales of
 Fig.1. Location map of the study area with respect to lower Indus basin of Pakistan and regional map.
Sembar Formation of Lower Cretaceous present in the lower Indus
basin was selected. The location map of the study area is shown in
Fig. 1. The chronostratigraphic chart of the lower Indus Basin is
presented in Fig. 2. From this chart it is clear that shales of various
ages’ range from the Paleocene to the Lower Cretaceous are present
in the study area. The shales of Sembar and Goru formations of lower
Cretaceous age can be act as potential shale gas play in the lower
Indus basin.
CHARACTERIZATION OF ORGANIC-RICH SHALES
Conventional petroleum system comprises by source, reservoir
and seal rocks in which carbonates and sandstones generally act as
reservoir rocks whereas shales act as a source and cap rock. In the last
few years, shales have been considered as a good reservoir because of
its high porosity, low permeability and organic-richness (Arogundade
and Sohrabi, 2012). Thus, at the same time these shales may be
considered as source, reservoir and seal rocks in unconventional
reservoirs and have large variability in mineralogical, elastic and
physical properties from basin to basin and even within the basin
(Harilal and Tandon, 2012). For example, the Barnett shale is mudstone
dominated; the Bakken Shale is composed by silt grains, dolomite
and quartzitic sand, and the Marcellus shale contains about 60%
quartz (Monk et al., 2011).
Seismic reflection and wireline logging techniques are generally
used to characterize conventional reservoirs (Jun-Yu et al., 2012; Zhang
et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2014; Khalid et al., 2014; Khalid et al., 2015;
Chatterjee et al., 2016; Das et al., 2017; Singha and Chatterjee, 2017;
Das and Chatterjee, 2018; Khalid et al., 2018). However, the seismic
characterizations of unconventional reservoirs are not well established.
Although some rock physics models for shale gas characterization
have been proposed by some workers (Parasad et al., 2009; Vernik
320
and Milovac, 2011; Zhu et al., 2011; Davie et al., 2012; Zhu et al.,
2012) but there are several factors such as thickness, porosity,
saturation, burial depth, formation temperature and pressure, fractures,
brittleness etc. have significant role in the development of shale gas
play (Zhu et al., 2012). The organic content present into shales has
specific density, radioactivity and electrical resistivity values that affect
wireline log and seismic responses (Zhu et al., 2011). Thus, shale gas
reservoirs can be characterized through logs and seismic.
Organic-rich shales are usually composed of three components
i.e., rock matrix, solid organic matter and the void space, while non-
organic rocks are composed of the rock matrix and the void space.
The schematic diagram of organic-rich rock showing various maturity
levels is presented in Fig. 3. In mature source rocks, under the action
of temperature, pressure and burial time a portion of the solid organic
matter is converted into liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons. This liquid
or gaseous hydrocarbon termed as petroleum fluid moves into the void
spaces and displacing the formation water or increases the saturation
of formation fluids. This physical movement and transformations of
fluids affect the porosity, density and resistivity of the hosting rocks
and hence reflected in their respective electric logs. Passey et al. (2010)
showed with the help of scanning electron microscope (SEM) images
that the solid organic matter has nano-porosity. However, the kerogen
present into an immature source rock has no void spaces.
Shale gas reservoirs are capable of self-generation and self-store
hydrocarbons. Because of this unique physical property of organic
matter in shale gas reservoirs, high wireline log response is expected
for sonic transit time, electrical resistivity, gamma ray and low density
as compared to non-organic shales. Thus, integrated techniques are
available to differentiate organic and non-organic shales and to
calculate TOC by using well logs and other data (Passey et al., 2010;
Sun et al., 2013).
JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.94, SEPT. 2019
Fig.2. General stratigraphic section showing major chronostratigraphic units in the Lower Indus Basin, Pakistan (Khalid et al., 2014; Azeem et
al., 2017).
Generally, gamma ray (GR) log is used to differentiate shales from
other lithologies in sedimentary areas. The presence of organic matter
in shales has an impact on GR log response as discussed by Schmoker
(1981). It indicates overall uranium and clay content in association of
organic-richness. Some empirical relationship exists between uranium
and organic matter therefore, spectral gamma ray tools have been used
to quantify organic matter into the rocks (Rider, 2002). The use of
electrical resistivity log is very common to identify fluid type into the
pores of reservoir rocks. In organic-rich shale intervals, the response
of electrical resistivity log increases dramatically. According to Passey
JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.94, SEPT. 2019
et al. (2010), the response of resistivity log is also associated with the
degree of maturity. In highly mature reservoirs resistivity values can
be significantly lower than the same reservoir at lower thermal
maturities. The density log is used to find out volume of kerogen or
TOC. The presence of less denser organic matter (kerogen) may
decrease the values of density log in organic-rich interval. Combined
with the resistivity log, density log gives the extremely valuable results
in organic-rich source interval (Passey et al. 2010). The use of sonic
log can enhance the level of confidence in the determination of TOC
when combined with the resistivity log (Passey et al. 2010).
321

Fig.3. Schematic diagram showing various stages of organic shale
and its essential ingredients.
WORKFLOW AND METHODOLOGY
Shale gas play is generally characterized by intermediate to high
volume of kerogen, higher effective porosity, lower clay volume, low
concentration of water, high bulk modulus and lower Poisson’s ratio
(Carcione et al., 2011). Petrophysical analysis in combination of
wireline logging and core analysis is the starting point of the
optimization of shale gas play. Seismic data interpretation and analysis
characterize the shale play away from the well control in the whole
field. Further, rock physics is a tool to link elastic properties of porous
rocks and fluids with petrophysical properties of the rock-fluid
composite. To analyze the impact of fluid properties especially, gas,
TOC and volume of kerogen on seismic properties of hosting rock
following work flow is established with a high level of confidence.
Computation of Vitrinite Reflectance and Level of Maturity
Thermal maturity is one of the basic parameters required for the
evaluation of shale gas play in shale gas prospecting. Thermal maturity
or level of maturity (LOM) – a unitless quantity – of a source rock,
indicates quality of the source rock in terms of producible oil, gas or
gas condensates. Various methods are in practice to measure LOM
e.g., vitrinite reflectance, thermal alteration index and Tmax, or estimated
using burial and thermal history of the basin (Rezaee and Chehrazi,
2005). In the presence of core samples, Rock – Eval prolysis technique
(Shiri et al., 2013; Kadkhodaie and Rezaee, 2017) is used to identify
type and LOM of organic matter in shales. LOM determines the source
Fig.4. Relation of Ro to another thermal maturity indicator known as
Level of Organic Metamorphism (LOM) (modified after Hood et al.,
1975).
322
rock quality either it can produce oil, gas or condensates. Since core
data was not available for this study therefore, Ro of the Sembar
Formation was computed from burial history (Sweeney and Burnham,
1990) using the software module Petromod. Peter (1986) describes
the thermal maturity parameters based on the maximum temperature
(Tmax) to determine the dimensions of oil windows Hood et al. (1975)
develop a single scale which synthesizes several existing indices of
organic maturity based on coal rank. The scale relates LOM to vitrinite
reflectance among other indicators is shown in Fig. 4.
Determination of TOC and Mineralogy
In the first step, TOC and volume of kerogen are determined along
with mineralogy, effective porosity and water saturation in the organic-
rich shale interval. As TOC is the primary indicator on the basis of
which one can declare a shale formation to be act as a shale gas play.
In general, TOC is measured from the lab analysis of organic shales
samples or core cuttings however, in those areas where core cutting is
not available, the use of wireline logs is very common to deduce the
TOC. In this study, core samples were not available, which is
insufficient to represent the TOC values of whole organic-rich shale
interval, therefore wireline logs were used to estimate TOC in the
shale intervals.
Among different methods of TOC estimation from wireline logs,
∆logR technique (Passey et al., 1990) is most commonly used for the
estimation of TOC in organic-rich shale interval however, the TOC
estimated by this method is in not in close agreement with the measured
values (Sun et al., 2014) therefore we also used Schmoker’s method
(Schmoker and Hester, 1983) to compute TOC in organic-rich intervals
of Sembar shale. ∆logR technique is based on the separation between
the deep electrical resistivity log curve and the bulk density, neutron
and sonic logs in which deep electrical resistivity log is paired with
one of the porosity logs. With the help of level of maturity (LOM) the
resistivity-porosity log curve overlay is converted into TOC.
In ∆logR technique, two log curves such as sonic and density logs
with respect to resistivity log curve are plotted against depth of
investigation. The overlay of the two log curves indicates to the baseline
and the corresponding log value at this overlay is called baseline
resistivity (Rb), baseline sonic (Dtb) and baseline density (rb). The
baseline represents the boundary between organic and non-organic
shale interval. The separation between baseline value and
corresponding log value is defined as ∆logR that is directly related to
TOC as demonstrated in Eq. 1 and 2.
∆ log R = log10 (R/Rb) + 0.02 × (∆t – ∆tb ) (1)
∆ log R = log10 (R/Rb) + 2.50 × (ρ – ρb ) (2)
The empirical relationship between TOC in clay-rich rocks and
∆logR is
TOC = (∆log R) x 10(2.297 – 0.1688 × LOM) (3)
where, TOC represents to total organic carbon content taken in
percentage (%), LOM is level of maturity. The relationship between
volume of kerogen (Vkr), TOC, density of pore fluid (ρf), formation
bulk density (ρb), density of kerogen (ρkr), and porosity (f) is given by
Vernik and Milovacet (2011):
TOC ρ b − ρ f φ
Vkr = × (4)
Ckr ρ kr (1 − φ )
where, Ckr is a constant of maturity whose value is in the range of
0.7–0.85 depending on the maturity level. The density of kerogen varies
1.2 – 1.4 g/cm3 depending on the maturity. According to the results of
the geochemical analysis of the samples of this organic shale kerogen
of Type II/III (Peters and Cassa, 1994) is present.
JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.94, SEPT. 2019
Wireline and Seismic Integration
The integration of seismic data interpretation to wireline logs is a
powerful tool to make results more accurate and reliable (Khalid et
al., 2018).
Rock Physics Modeling and Attribute Analysis
Rock physics provides an important link between various micro-
scopic properties and macroscopic physical properties of rocks and
fluids (Das et al., 2018). Rock physics modeled is used to quantify the
effect of volume of kerogen, porosity and TOC on seismic properties
of organic-rich Sembar shale. It is assumed the mixture of kerogen
and hydrocarbon-filled pores has non-zero shear modulus (Passey et
al. 1990). The method proposed by Carcione (2001) based on the
effective medium theory of Kuster and Toksöz (1974) is used to
estimate the elastic moduli of the mixtures (kerogen, oil, gas, water)
and the organic-rich shales. The saturation of kerogen, oil, gas and
water are represented by Sk, S o, Sg and Sw respectively. The bulk
modulus of the oil/gas/water mixture (Kogw) is estimated by the formula
proposed by Wood (1931):
−1
S S g Sw 
K ogw = o + + 
K
 o K g K w 
Where, Ko, Kg, and Kw are the bulk moduli of oil, gas and water
respectively. Since, the input parameters used in the rock physics
modeling are extracted from wireline logs data, therefore, the resultant
elastic parameters of shales are only representing to vertical direction
under the isotropic assumption and can be used to establish the
relationship between kerogen, TOC and elastic properties of organic
shales in vertical wells. In this study, the relationship proposed by
Castagna et al. (1985) is used to find out compressional and shear
wave velocities for silicates rocks:
Vs = (Vp – 1.36) / 1.16
where VP is P– wave velocity and VS is shear wave velocity in
km/sec. VP is calculated from sonic log run in the study wells. The
other elastic parameters of organic-rich shale such as shear, bulk
modulus and Poisson’s ratio can be obtained by using the following
relationship of P– and S– wave velocities with density:
µ = ρ × Vs2
4 Sembar shales estimated in four wells is plotted as a function of
K = ρ × (VP2 − VS2 )
3 neutron porosity (f) and volume of kerogen (Vkr) in Fig. 8. The average
RESULTS
In this study, we used wireline logs of four wells: K-01, D-01, S-
01 and Kh-01 from the lower Indus Basin, Pakistan, where Sembar
shale is encountered and has a good level of maturity in terms of
vitrinite reflectance as depicted in Fig. 5. According to the burial history
technique the level of maturity is a function of depth as demonstrated
in Fig. 5. The vitrinite reflectance of the Sembar shales is in the range
of Ro ~0.7 % - 1.2 % encountered in the four wells. The maximum
value of Ro is about 1.2 %, in K-01 well where Sembar Formation is
encountered at a depth of 4240 m and the minimum value of Ro is
about 0.7 % in Kh-01 well where depth of this organic shale is about
3485 m. These values of Ro show that the shales of Sembar Formation
falls in mature level mainly in oil window except in well K-01 where
vitrinite reflectance value falls in wet gas window (Alexander et al.,
2011). These Ro values further correlated with Hood et al. (1975) coal
rank table (Fig. 4) to determine the LOM. The estimated level of
maturity with respect to vitrinite reflectance of the Sembar Shale is
presented in Table 2. The source rock interval in the Sembar Formation
was marked by using well-known Passey’s method (Passey et al. 1990).
This shale formation is easily mapable on 2D seismic section as
presented in Fig. 6 where it is sandwiched between Upper Jurassic
(5)
Chiltan Limestone (lower contact) and Goru Formation of the
Cretaceous (upper contact). The lower contact is very sharp with high
amplitudes due to strong impedance contrast between Sembar shales
and Chiltan Limestone. The shaly sequence is identified with low
amplitudes. Some high amplitude anomalies in Sembar Formation are
due to thin bed intercalations of sandstone and limestone. These thin
bed intercalations can be inferred from phase attributes and subtle
discontinuities are inferred from reflection strength attribute as depicted
in Fig. 6b & c.
TOC, Volume of Kerogen and Porosity of Sembar Shales
Due to lack of core data, conventional well data including: gamma
(6) ray, resistivity, sonic and density are used for TOC calculation.
According to the observations and analysis based on Passey et al.
(1990) density/resistivity logs overlay method, the Sembar shale is
composed by clay, quartz, dolomite, hydrocarbon-saturated kerogen,
and fluid-saturated pores in shale matrix. The computed TOC by the
above mentioned method in shales intervals encountered in all four
wells is plotted in Fig. 7 along with lithological variations. The average
range of TOC in Sembar organic shales encountered in these four
(7) wells is 0.8 % – 6 %, thus showing poor to good potential of
unconventional shale gas reservoir. Total organic content in organic
(8)

σ = 0.5 (VP2 – Vs2 ) / ( VP2 – Vs2 ) (9) Table 2. Level of thermal maturity with respect to vitrinite reflectance of
Sembar Shale encounterted in study wells computed by using Hood et al.
Where µ is shear modulus, ρ is density g/cm3, K is bulk modulus (1975) maturity table.
and σ is the Poisson’s ratio. The elastic properties of all these Well Vitrinite Level of Thermal
constituents used in rock physics model are given in Table 1. name reflectance maturity maturation
(%Ro) (LOM)

Table 1. Elastic properties of different constituents of shale gas reservoir used S-01 0.87 10 Oil window
in rock physics modeling (Mavko et al., 2009) K-01 1.21 11.2 Wet gas window
D-01 1.03 10.8 Oil window
Density Bulk modulus Shear modulus
Kh-01 0.66 9 Oil window
(g/cm3) (GPa) (GPa)
Quartz 2.65 37 43 Table 3. Log derived porosities of the Sembar shales intervals encountered in
Clay 2.5 21.5 9 four wells of the study area.
Dolomite 2.85 95 45 Well Name Depth interval (m) Porosity range
Kerogen 1.4 6.8 2.02 K-01 3800 – 3860 0.06 – 0.14
Oil 0.7 0.6 0 Kh-01 1900 – 1990 0.08 – 0.16
Gas 0.12 0.06 0 D-01 3600 – 3870 0.08 – 0.13
Water 1.04 2.25 0 S-01 3420 – 3490 0.03 – 0.14

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.94, SEPT. 2019 323

Fig.5. Level of maturity in terms of vitrinite reflectance (Ro) with respect to burial depth for Sembar formation encountered in S-01, K-01, D-01
and Kh-01 wells drilled in lower Indus Basin of Pakistan.

Fig.6. (a) Interpreted seismic section showing reflector of Sembar Shales, (b) Reflections strength showing signature of shale layers and (c)
Phase section showing internal layering within shaly section, the western end of the study.

324 JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.94, SEPT. 2019

 (a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig.7. TOC computation and demarcation of organic-rich intervals in the Sembar shales by using density/resistivity logs overlay for wells
(a) S-01, (b) D-01, (c) K-01 and (d) Kh-01 respectively.

porosity of shale intervals in each wells is presented in Table 3. It is

evident from the figure that TOC has direct relation with effective
porosity. The maximum TOC is estimated in Kh-01 well (about 6%)
where porosity is also maximum upto 16%. The minimum content of
TOC is computed in D-01 well where TOC~ 0.8% corresponding to
intermediate porosity values. The volume of kerogen varies in the
range of 0 – 20% in all wells. The increase in porosity and volume of
kerogen result in increase in TOC. However, TOC is a first order
function of volume of kerogen whereas TOC is less dependent on
change is porosity.

Effect of TOC and Volume of Kerogen on Seismic Properties of

Sembar Shales
To see the effect of TOC and volume of kerogen on elastic and
seismic properties such as P-wave velocities, saturated bulk modulus
of incompressibility, shear modulus and Possion’s ratio of organic-
rich Sembar shales are plotted in 3D surface as a function of TOC and
volume of kerogen and presented in Fig. 9. It is clear from the modeling
results that an inverse relationship between P-wave velocities and TOC
exists in the organic-rich intervals. P-wave velocity reduces in organic- Fig.8. 3D surface plot showing the interdependency of volume of
rich shale intervals as compared to non-organic shales. The correlation kerogene, effective porosity and TOC in organic-rich shale intervals
between TOC and silica contents into the organic shale seems to be of Sembar Shale encountered in four wells under investigation drilled
positive whereas an inverse correlation between TOC and the clay in lower Indus Basin, Pakistan.

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.94, SEPT. 2019 325

Fig.9. Effect of volume of kerogene and TOC on (a) P-wave velocity, (b) Saturated bulk modulus of incompressibility, (c) Shear modulus of
incompressibility and (d) Poisson’s ratio of organic-rich shale intervals of Sembar Shale encountered in four wells under investigation drilled in
lower Indus Basin, Pakistan.
content is noted. Thus, the dependency of seismic velocities on TOC
slightly deviates from its trend and increases with an increase in stiffer
quartz fraction and decreases with increase in clay contents as
confirmed by Zhu et al. (2012). Bulk modulus and shear modulus
indicate the elastic behavior of the rock. The bulk and shear modulus
of the Sembar shales also have an inverse relation with TOC (Fig. 9b
and Fig. 9c). Low values of bulk modulus represent high porosity and
high TOC contents in the shale intervals.
Perez et al. (2011) present heuristic rock physics template to
correlate shale composition with Lame impedances (lamda*density
and shear modulus*density). Alzate (2012) and Alzate and Devegowda
(2013) present four iso-poisson’s ratio lines assuming that the variation
in young’s modulus along these lines is the result of TOC and porosity.
The crossplot between Poisson’s ratio and the Young’s modulus is
used by various workers to classify source rock as brittle or ductile.
Variation in elastic parameter, such as Young’s modulus indicates to
the brittleness of the rocks. 3D surface plotted in Fig. 9d shows the
influence of volume of kerogen and TOC on Poission’s ratio of the
organic-rich shale intervals, which shows an increasing trend with an
increase in Vkr and TOC.
CONCLUSIONS
The potential of Sembar Formation was investigated to act as
shale gas play in the Lower Indus Basin of Pakistan. TOC was
determined using density/resistivity logs overlay technique by Passey
et al. (1990) method. The estimated values of level of maturity, vitrinite
reflectance and TOC from wireline logs rune in the four wells indicate
that the shales of Sembar Formation can act as an unconventional
shale gas reservoir with fair to good potential in the study area.
However, further investigation is required to validate the results of
wireline logs with core sample analysis and real vitrinite reflectance
and geochemical data. TOC and volume of kerogen have an indirect
relation with seismic and elastic signatures of the organic-rich shale
intervals.
326
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