Natural and Induced Diagenesis in Clastic Rock

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Geochemistry and Geochronology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 October 2025 | Viewed by 396

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Energy, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Interests: diagenesis; water–rock reaction simulation; reservoir evaluation

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Guest Editor
Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Interests: sediment diagenesis and reservoir quality prediction; carbon capture and geostorage; geothermal energy; natural hydrogen and helium exploration; human-induced seismicity

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Guest Editor
College of Energy, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Interests: sedimentology; sequence stratigraphy; reservoir geology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The process whereby unconsolidated sediment becomes indurated rock is called diagenesis. It includes compaction, resulting from burial loading along with precipitation of new mineral species from the connate water and, in many instances, dissolution of deposited grains and/or earlier precipitated cements. Diagenesis may begin immediately after deposition and continue episodically until throughout its geological history. The process of near-surface weathering is commonly treated separately.

Although diagenesis is a natural process, subsurface interventions by humans can accidentally or intentionally induce reactions leading to compaction, mineral precipitation, and/or mineral dissolution. Such induced processes have been known about for decades, but only now, as humanity increases its exploitation of the subsurface for geoenergy and storage or disposal of fluids, is interest growing.

The fluid/rock and fluid/fluid reactions that characterize diagenesis most commonly involve water but can also include petroleum, carbon dioxide, and other non-aqueous fluids, such as nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrogen.

Diagenesis changes the properties of the rock in which it acts. The changes include but are not limited to the rock’s acoustic impedance, strength, unit thickness, porosity, permeability, grain surfaces, wettability, and bound water. These changes in turn affect rocks response to seismic signals, measurements made during well logging and quality of the reservoir in terms of its storage capacity, producibility and injectivity. Together and separately, these property changes will affect the technical and commercial viability of exploiting the sandstone for its contained fluids and fluid storage potential.

The Special Issue invites submissions, including original scientific research on clastic diagenesis and water–rock reaction mechanisms from well-known and/or new regions around the world. This Special Issue focuses on the following: (1) mineral–fluid reaction mechanism of clastic rocks (including sandstone and shale); (2) geochemistry and chronology of diagenetic minerals in clastic rocks (including sandstone and shale); and (3) the application of comprehensive diagenesis on the reservoir prediction for clastic rock.

Dr. Meiyan Fu
Prof. Dr. Jon Gluyas
Dr. Dong Wu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • diagenetic fluid
  • multi-mineral phase interaction
  • dissolution mechanism
  • organic–inorganic interaction
  • diagenetic facies

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

24 pages, 9668 KiB  
Article
Study on Reservoir Characteristics, the Tightening Process and Reservoir Quality in Source-to-Sink Systems in the Xu-2 Member of the Xujiahe Formation in the Western Sichuan Basin, Western China
by Dong Wu, Yu Yu, Liangbiao Lin, Sibing Liu, Binjiang Li and Xiaolong Ye
Minerals 2025, 15(6), 625; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15060625 - 9 Jun 2025
Viewed by 208
Abstract
The Upper Triassic Xujiahe Formation in the western Sichuan Basin is rich in natural gas resources and is one of the main tight sandstone gas-producing layers in the Sichuan Basin. Taking the tight sandstone of the second member of the Xujiahe Formation (Xu-2 [...] Read more.
The Upper Triassic Xujiahe Formation in the western Sichuan Basin is rich in natural gas resources and is one of the main tight sandstone gas-producing layers in the Sichuan Basin. Taking the tight sandstone of the second member of the Xujiahe Formation (Xu-2 Member) in the western Sichuan Basin as the study target, based on the analysis of the rock sample, a thin section, scanning electron microscopy, inclusion, the carbon and oxygen isotope, the petrological characteristics, the reservoir properties, the diagenetic sequences, and the pore evolution processes were revealed. The tight sandstones are composed of litharenite, sublitharenite, and feldspathic litharenite with an average porosity of 3.81% and a permeability mainly ranging from 0.01 to 0.5 mD. The early to late diagenetic stages were revealed, and the diagenetic evolution sequence with five stages was constructed. The Xu-2 sandstones were subdivided into three different types, and each type has its own tightening factors and processes. In the quartz-rich sandstone, the compaction and pressure solution were the primary causes of reservoir tightening, while late fracturing and dissolution along fractures were the main factors improving reservoir properties. In the feldspar-rich sandstone, early dissolution was a primary factor in improving porosity, while carbonate and quartz cements generated by dissolution contributed to a decrease in porosity. In the rock-fragment-rich sandstone, chlorites formed in the early stage and dissolution were the main factors of reservoir quality improvement, while the authigenic quartz formed in the middle diagenetic stage was the primary cause of reservoir tightening. Four major source-to-sink systems were identified in the western Sichuan Basin and they have different reservoir characteristics and reservoir quality controlling factors. This study will contribute to a deeper understanding of the characteristics, diagenetic evolution, and tightening process of tight sandstone reservoirs, effectively promoting scientific research and the industrial development of tight sandstone gas in the Xu-2 Member of the Sichuan Basin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural and Induced Diagenesis in Clastic Rock)
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