Marine and Petroleum Geology 27 (2010) 16921697

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Marine and Petroleum Geology

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A permeabilityporosity relationship for mudstones

Yunlai Yang a, b, *, Andrew C. Aplin a
a
School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Drummond Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK
b
PetroQuant Consultants, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The relationship between permeability and porosity for ne-grained clastic sediments (mudstones) is
Received 9 February 2009 a key constitutive equation for modelling subsurface uid ow and is fundamental to the quantication
Accepted 8 July 2009 of a range of geological processes. For a given porosity, mudstone permeability varies over a range of 25
Available online 18 July 2009
orders of magnitude. We show here that much of the range can be explained by variations in lithology,
which we dene simply and pragmatically by clay content (mass fraction of particles less than 2 microns
Keywords:
in diameter). Using clay content as the quantitative lithology descriptor, we have used a dataset (clay
Fine-grained clastic sediments
content range of 1297%; porosity range of 0.040.78; six orders of magnitude permeability range)
Mudstone
Shale comprising 376 data points to derive a new bedding perpendicular permeability (K, m2) void ratio
Permeabilityporosity relationship (e porosity/(1-porosity)) relationship as a function of clay content (CF):

lnK 69:59  26:79,CF 44:07,CF 0:5 53:61  80:03,CF 132:78,CF 0:5 ,e

86:61 81:91,CF  163:61,CF 0:5 ,e0:5

The coefcient of regression (r2) 0.93. At a given porosity, the inclusion of the quantitative litho-
logical descriptor, clay content reduces the predicted range of permeability from 2 to 5 orders of
magnitude to one order.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Fine-grained clastic sediments, mud and its lithied counter-
parts mudstone and shale, ll around 70% of the worlds sedi-
mentary basins. Since the permeability of mudstones is several
orders of magnitude lower than that of coarser grained lithologies
such as sand, mudstones control the rate at which uids, including
water, petroleum and CO2, move through  or are retained within
 sedimentary basins, and the rate of sediment compaction. The
permeability of ne-grained, clastic sediments and its relationship
with porosity are thus fundamental to the quantication of a range
of geological processes and geo-engineering applications, such as
(a) basin evolution and the development of high pore uid pres-
sures (Smith, 1971; Bethke, 1985; Luo and Vasseur, 1992; Schneider
et al., 1993; Dugan and Flemings, 2000); (b) formation of mud
diapirs (Graue, 2000; Milkov, 2000); (c) destabilisation of conti-
nental slopes (Dugan and Flemings, 2000); (d) the long-term
subsurface retention of petroleum (England et al., 1987; Watts,
* Corresponding author. Saudi ARAMCO, Advanced Research Centre, Building 137,
Dhahran 31311, Saudi Arabia. Tel.: 966 3 873 0205; fax: 966 3 873 0572.
E-mail address: yunlai.yang@aramco.com.sa (Y. Yang).
1987; Schlomer and Krooss, 1997), radioactive waste and CO2
(Holloway, 2001; Hildenbrand et al., 2004; Marty et al., 2003;
Huysmans and Dassargues, 2006; Bickle et al., 2007); (e) surface
geological process, such as erosion (Jacobs et al., 2007) and ow-
slides (Wang and Shibata, 2007); (f) shale gas production (Luffel
et al., 1993); and (g) evaluation of foundation settlement and
landll liner design.
Permeability is a constant for a given porous medium and uid.
To separate the inuence of uid from that of the porous medium,
the absolute permeability K is dened which only describes the
permeability of the porous medium (see Leonards, 1962 for
a review):
h
K k (1)
r
where, K  absolute permeability, L2; k  permeability, LT1;
h  coefcient of dynamic viscosity of the uid, TFL2; r  unit
weight of the uid, FL3. For clay-rich media, equation (1) strictly
only applies to non-polar uids, since permeability is also affected
by the valence and concentration of dissolved cations (Mesri and
Olson, 1971; Mishra et al., 2005).
Mudstone permeabilities are direction dependent, with higher
values parallel to bedding. This phenomenon reects two factors:

0264-8172/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2009.07.001
 Y. Yang, A.C. Aplin / Marine and Petroleum Geology 27 (2010) 16921697 1693

particle alignment and material heterogeneity. Material heteroge- 100

neity relates primarily to sediment deposition and is most obvi-

Clay particle content (%)

ously linked to conditions leading to the formation of silt  clay 80
lamination (e.g. Bennett et al., 1991). Particle alignment is linked to
the subsequent mechanical compaction and clay mineral recrys-
60
tallisation (e.g. Ho et al., 1999; Bolton et al., 2000; Aplin et al., 2006;
Day-Stirrat et al., 2008).
Published permeability data for ne-grained clastic sediments, 40
especially well characterised ne-grained clastic sediments, are
This study
sparse, but suggest a range of around six orders of magnitude, with 20
a three orders of magnitude range at a single porosity (Mesri and Skempton, 1944
Olson, 1971; Coyner et al., 1993; Neuzil, 1994; Nagaraj et al., 1994; 0
Yang and Aplin, 1998, 2007; Dewhurst et al., 1998, 1999a, 1999b; 0 50 100 150
Hildenbrand et al., 2004; Kwon et al., 2004; Mallon et al., 2005). Liquid limit (%)
Current permeabilityporosity relationships (e.g. Nagaraj et al.,
1994) for mudstones are inadequate and only applicable over the Fig. 1. Correlation between clay content and liquid limit for ne-grained clastic sedi-
ments. Number of samples 18.
often narrow range of porosities and lithologies used to dene the
relationship. The wide permeability range and the lack of a reliable
permeabilityporosity relationship hinders quantitatively useful correlates well with liquid limit (Skempton, 1944; Fig. 1), a quanti-
ow modelling to a range of geological and geo-engineering tative lithology descriptor of ne-grained sediments used in soil
applications. mechanics (Skempton, 1944; Burland, 1990) and (d) clay content
The aim of this paper is to construct a practically useful rela- has been employed successfully as the quantitative lithology
tionship between bedding perpendicular, absolute permeability and descriptor in the denition of porosity effective stress relation-
porosity for homogeneous, ne-grained clastic sediments. We are ship of ne-grained clastic sediments (Yang and Aplin, 2004). For
dealing with absolute permeability since it is an intrinsic property these reasons, we explore the extent to which clay content can be
of sediments. Further, we do not consider the effect of solution used as a pragmatic lithology descriptor which will help constrain
chemistry on permeability. Following convention, absolute permeabilityporosity relationship of ne-grained clastic
permeability is simply termed permeability hereafter. The con- sediments.
structed relationship can be used in two ways. First, it can be
directly applied as a constitutive equation in the dynamic
3. Dataset
modelling of geological processes involving uid ow, such as basin
evolution (Smith, 1971; Bethke, 1985; Dugan and Flemings, 2000).
The dataset is summarised in Table 1 and is shown as a perme-
Second, it can also be used to quickly and easily evaluate perme-
abilityporosity plot in Fig. 2. All together 376 data points were
ability from porosity, which can be much more easily measured or
collected from 303 samples. Samples from sources 14 and one
derived from geophysical data. The derived permeabilities can then
sample from source 5 (Table 1) are marine sediments, accounting
be applied in static applications, in which the permeability,
for 299 out of 303 samples. Ninety three of the 376 data points
instead of permeabilityporosity relationship is required.
represent permeabilities measured using constant head, constant
ow and transient pulse decay (e.g. Hsieh et al., 1981) techniques,
2. Lithological control of permeabilityporosity relationship
or consolidation tests (Terzaghi, 1943). The remaining data are
permeabilities derived from pore size distribution data using
The development of a practical permeabilityporosity relation-
a model (Yang and Aplin, 1998) which has been calibrated using
ship for mudstones requires an understanding of the main factors
measured permeability data and which predicts permeability to
resulting in the wide permeability range observed at a single
factor of 3 of the measured values over a wide permeability range
porosity. Poiseuilles Law states that for a porous media composed
(Yang and Aplin, 2007). Clay contents, porosities, pore size distri-
of parallel tubes of equal diameter, the permeability is related to the
butions and total organic carbon contents for the samples from
square of the pore radius. A combination of theory and experi-
sources 1, 2 and 4 (Table 1) were determined using previously
mental data show that at a given porosity, pore size distributions of
published techniques (Yang and Aplin, 1997, 1998, 2007; BS 1377:
both granular media such as sandstones and mudstones are
1990). In order to achieve the widest possible range of clay
controlled in the rst order by grain size (Mesri and Olson, 1971;
contents, we have included ve permeability data points of pure,
Bryant et al., 1993; Cade et al., 1994; Yang and Aplin, 1998, 2007;
Na-exchanged smectite for which the clay content is 97% (Mesri
Dewhurst et al., 1998). At a given porosity, pore radii, and thus
and Olson, 1971). Although these data are not from natural
permeability decrease as grain radii decrease. We therefore antic-
sediments, ultra-ne-grained clastic sediments can be smectite-
ipate that the wide range of mudstone permeabilities can be more
rich, so that the smectite sample approximates an end member
tightly constrained by adding a lithological, or grain size descriptor
ne-grained sediment.
to a relationship which predicts permeability from porosity.
Clay contents were measured in most samples (95% in terms of
It is impractical to use particle size distribution as a lithological
samples, 84% in terms of data points). For the rest of the samples
descriptor for two reasons; rstly, it cannot be readily employed in
(sources 1 and 5, Table 1), clay contents were not available and were
a simple equation and secondly, it must be measured and cannot be
estimated from a relationship between clay content and liquid limit
assessed from geophysical data such as the downhole well logs. We
derived from the data in Fig. 1:
suggest that clay content, dened here as the mass fraction of
particles less than 2 micron in diameter is a reasonable lithological
CF 0:761  0:00438,LL 0:1872,LL0:5 (2)
descriptor for the following four important reasons: (a) it is a single
number which can be easily incorporated into a permeability where CF is clay content in fraction and LL is liquid limit (%).
porosity equation, (b) it is strongly correlated with the overall grain The coefcient of regression, r2 0.95. The dataset used in the
size distribution of mudstones (Yang and Aplin, 2004), (c) it derivation of the above equation (equation(2)) covers a clay content
1694 Y. Yang, A.C. Aplin / Marine and Petroleum Geology 27 (2010) 16921697

Table 1
Dataset used in the construction of the permeability porosity/void ratio relationship.

Data source (1) Yang and (2) This work (3) Long and Hobbs, 1979 (4) Dewhurst (5) Nagaraj et al., 1994 (6) Mesri and
Aplin, 2007 and Long, 1979 et al., 1998, 1999b Olson, 1971
No. of data 22 261 38 26 24 5
No. of samples 22 261 9 6 4 1
Sample type Cores from North Cuttings and cores from Shallow (1.2130 m) Shallow buried Reconstitut ed residual Smectite in
Sea and Gulf of North Sea and Gulf of marine sediments London clay sediments (India) concentrated NaCl
Mexico oil wells Mexico oil wells from North solution
Sea boreholes
Method of Transient pulse Modelled from pore Terzaghis model from Direct measurement; Direct measurement Terzaghis model
evaluation of K decay technique size data (Yang and 1D consolidation Terzaghis model from 1D consolidation
Aplin, 1998, 2007)
Range of clay 1241 2492 3240 3369 3470 97
content (%)
Clay content Measured Measured From liquid limit Measured From liquid limit Measured
evaluation
Range of 0.0550.22 0.040.45 0.260.55 0.220.43 0.360.7 0.560.78
porosity
Range of K (m2) 2.4  10 22
2.5  10 22
 19
3.6  10  21
2.7  10  1.1  1018
 3.7  1021
1.6  1019 3.0  1019 1.7  1016 2.1  1018 1.6  1016 3.5  1020
Permeant 30,000 mg/L N/A In situ pore uid In situ pore uid Not available 0.1 N NaCl solution
NaCl solution (500 mg/L NaCl (distilled water?)
and 50 mg/L
CaCl2 solution)
Range of TOC 0.12.4 0.24.8 0.20.9
(% of weight)

range of 12%80% (Fig. 1), encompassing essentially the whole
range of clastic ne-grained sediment lithologies.
The permeants used in the measurement of permeability in
Sources 1, 3 and 4 (Table 1) are either in situ pore uids or uids
very similar to the in situ pore uids. Permeabilities estimated from
pore size distributions (source 2 in Table 1) were derived using
a model (Yang and Aplin, 1998) which was calibrated using
a dataset (source 1, Table 1) in which the permeants were similar to
the in situ pore uids of marine sediments; the virtual permeant
of these data points is therefore similar to the pore uids of marine
sediments. All samples from sources 14 are marine sediments, so
that 92% of the permeability data points were measured or
modelled using pore uids close to those of marine sediments.
Permeabilities from sources 4, 5 and 6 are permeabilities relative to
the permeants (k) and were converted to absolute permeabilities
using equation (1) from calculated viscosity data based on experi-
mental temperatures. In one case (Mesri and Olson, 1971), 22  C
was assumed.
1E-15
12-30
30-40
1E-16
40-50
50-60
1E-17 60-70
70-80
1E-18 80-90
K (m2)
In summary, 376 data points were collected from 303 samples,
of which nearly 99% are marine sediments. The samples have
the following ranges of key properties (Table 1 and Fig. 2): clay
content: 1297%; porosity: 0.040.78; permeability: 2.4  1022
1.7  1016 m2; age: recent (see bed sediments) to late Jurassic
(sources 14, Table 1) and total organic carbon content: 0.14.8%.
The total organic carbon contents from sources 3, 5 and 6 (Table 1)
were not available, but are very likely within the range of the other
samples. The dataset thus covers close to the full spectrum of ne-
grained clastic sediments in terms both of lithology and compac-
tion state.
4. Porositypermeability relationship
The permeability data in Fig. 2 range over six orders of magni-
tude, from about 2  1022 m2 to about 2  1016 m2. The range of
permeabilities at a single porosity decreases with porosity, from
over 4 orders of magnitude at porosity of 0.4 to 2 orders of
magnitude at porosity of 0.15. The convergence of permeabilities at
lower porosities reects the fact that mudstones appear to compact
by preferential collapse of those large pores which contribute most
of the uid ow (Borst, 1982; Yang and Aplin, 1998, 2007; Dewhurst
et al., 1998, 1999a, b). As porosities decrease, pore size distributions
for lithologically diverse mudstones become increasingly similar
(Borst, 1982; Yang and Aplin, 1998, 2007; Dewhurst et al., 1998,
1999a, b).

97
Fig. 2 indicates rstly that there is no single, simple relationship
1E-19 between permeability and porosity for mudstones and secondly
that the variability is mainly controlled by clay content; the lower
1E-20 the clay content, the higher the permeability at the same porosity.
The inuence of clay content on permeabilityporosity relationship
1E-21 is explored explicitly in Fig. 3, which shows data for 58 samples
from an 18 m long core from the Gulf of Mexico. These samples
1E-22 have a narrow porosity range (0.04) (0.20 to 0.24) but diverse clay
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
contents (37%70%). The minor variations in porosity are controlled
Porosity by clay content (Fig. 3a), as predicted by mechanical compaction
Fig. 2. Permeability porosity dataset. Legend shows the range of clay content for
models for muds (Skempton, 1944; Burland, 1990; Yang and Aplin,
each band. Open circles and crosses are data points of measured or modelled 2004). Permeabilities vary by an order of magnitude and correlate
permeability respectively. strongly with clay content (Fig. 3b and 3c), generating condence in
 Y. Yang, A.C. Aplin / Marine and Petroleum Geology 27 (2010) 16921697 1695

a 0.24 b 1E-19

0.23

Porosity

K (m2)
0.22
1E-20
0.21
0.2

0.19 1E-21
30 40 50 60 70 80 0.19 0.2 0.21 0.22 0.23 0.24
Clay content (%) Porosity

c 1E-19
K (m2)

1E-20

1E-21
30 40 50 60 70 80
Clay content (%)

Fig. 3. Porosity, clay content and modelled permeability data for 58 samples from an 18 m core from the Gulf of Mexico. (a) porosity vs. clay content, showing the dependence of
porosity on clay content; (b) permeability vs. porosity; (c) strong dependence of permeability on clay content and the good t of equation (3) to the data.

the use of clay content as a key constraint on mudstone per- on the permeabilityporosity relationship is incorporated in the
meability  porosity relationships. coefcients. At a xed porosity or void ratio, the permeability clay
Previous studies have shown ne-grained clastic sediment content relationship thus takes the form of the relationship
permeability is roughly related to porosity (4) or void ratio (e 4/ between the coefcients and clay content. Fig. 3c shows that the
(14)) by log-linear functions (Mesri and Olson, 1971; Lapierre form between clay content and coefcients is robust.
et al., 1990; Nagaraj et al., 1994; Yang and Aplin, 1998, 2007; Fitting equation (3) to our dataset gives the relationship
Dewhurst et al., 1998, 1999a, b). Our dataset suggests that whilst between permeability and porosity for mudstones as a function of
a linear relationship between log permeability and porosity is clay content:
reasonable over a restricted porosity range, over the full porosity
range the relationship between the logarithmic permeability and lnK 69:59  26:79,CF 44:07,CF 0:5
 
porosity or void ratio is better described by a slightly more complex
 53:61  80:03,CF 132:78,CF 0:5 ,e
form. The following form ts our dataset best:
 
86:61 81:91,CF  163:61,CF 0:5 ,e0:5 (4)
lnK aK bK ,e cK ,e0:5
(3)
aK or bK or cK c0 c1 ,CF c2 ,CF 0:5 for which the coefcient of regression (r2) 0.93. Fig. 4 shows the
where CF is the clay content in fraction, e is the void ratio and aK, bK, t of equation (4) to the dataset.
cK, c0, c1 and c2 are coefcients (m2). The inuence of clay content
5. Discussion

1.E-15 Fig. 5 shows that the constructed relationship between perme-

12-30 ability and porosity has the ability to predict the permeability of
1.E-16 30-40
40-50
50-60
1.E-17 60-70 1.E-15
70-80
80-90 1.E-16
Measured or modelled K (m2)

1.E-18
K (m2)

97

1.E-19 1.E-17

1.E-18
1.E-20
1.E-19
1.E-21
1.E-20 Modelled
1.E-22 Measured
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.E-21
Porosity
1.E-22
Fig. 4. Comparison between measured/modeled permeabilities and our constructed 1E-22 1E-21 1E-20 1E-19 1E-18 1E-17 1E-16 1E-15
relationship (equation (4)). Curves are from the clay content constrained Calculated K (m2)
porosity  permeability relationship. Legend shows the range of clay content for each
band. Open circles and crosses are data points of measured or modelled permeability Fig. 5. Comparison between permeabilities calculated using equation (4) and
respectively. Each curve represents the relationship at the middle value of clay permeabilities which are either measured or modelled from pore size data (Yang and
contents of the band with the same colour. Aplin, 1998; 2007). Dashed lines represent a range of factor of 3 from the 1:1 line.
1696 Y. Yang, A.C. Aplin / Marine and Petroleum Geology 27 (2010) 16921697
Clay (%)
0 50
6000
6500
7000
7500
TVDsfl (ft)
8000
8500
9000
9500
Fig. 6. Evaluated clay content, porosity and permeability for a mud-rich section of a North Sea well. Clay contents and porosities were evaluated from well logs using the approach
developed by Yang et al. (2004). Permeabilities were evaluated from clay contents and porosities from equation (4).
almost all the samples to within a factor of 3 over a six orders of
magnitude range of permeability. By including clay content as
a discriminator, an uncertainty of 25 orders of magnitude in
permeability at a given porosity is collapsed to 1 order of magni-
tude. This strikingly improved correlation reects the basic control
that grain size exerts on pore size in ne-grained clastic sediments.
The remaining one order of magnitude uncertainty in the predicted
permeability partly reects measurement uncertainty, but prob-
ably primarily the fact that a simple descriptor such as clay content
can only approximate the complexities of mudstone lithology and
grain size distribution.
The constructed relationship between permeability and
porosity can be easily applied in both dynamic and static
geological uid ow modelling. For dynamic modelling, the specic
constitutive equation between permeability and porosity for
a given mudstone can be derived from the mudstones clay content.
For static modelling, mudstone permeability can be evaluated from
clay content and porosity, both of which can be measured in the
laboratory or can be estimated from geophysical well logs (e.g. Yang
et al., 2004). If geophysical logs are available, continuous proles of
both permeabilities and permeabilityporosity relationships can be
derived and incorporated into a range of ow models designed to
simulate, for example, basin scale uid ow and leakage rates of
petroleum or stored CO2. Fig. 6, as an example, demonstrates the
way in which geophysical log data can be used to assess the
permeability structure of mud-rich sedimentary sequences. In
Fig. 6, clay contents, porosities and permeabilities were evaluated
for a mud-rich section of a North Sea well from well logs and our
constructed permeabilityporosity relationship. Clay contents and
grain densities were evaluated from well logs using Articial Neural
Networks models constructed by Yang et al. (2004). Porosities were
calculated from grain densities and log-derived bulk densities, and
permeabilities were then calculated from the evaluated clay
contents and porosities using equation (4). Apart from the
demonstration of the approach, this example also demonstrates
two important points. In this case, the section shallower than
8475 ft has a higher porosity but an order of magnitude lower
Porosity K (m2)
100 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 1.E-21 1.E-20 1.E-19 1.E-18
permeability than the more heterogeneous, coarser grained deeper
section. Note also that even within the relative homogeneous
section above 8475 ft, there are some relatively coarse layers with
much higher permeabilities.
Since the permeabilityporosity relationship constructed here is
based mainly on marine mudstones, care should be taken when
applying it to non-marine mudstones, or mudstones containing
hypersaline pore uids, or pore uids in which the dominant cation
is Ca2 rather than Na. In these cases, the thickness of the double
diffuse layer around phyllosilicate minerals will differ to that
typical of marine pore uids, leading to a relative decrease (low
salinity) or increase (high salinity) in permeability (Mesri and
Olson, 1971; Mishra et al., 2005). The effect is related to specic
surface area or particle sizes (Mesri and Olson, 1971; Mishra et al.,
2005), which is correlated to clay mineral content. This effect will
be greatest in mudstones with high clay mineral contents.
Acknowledgements
The work presented in this paper was supported by the GeoPOP
consortium, comprising Amerada Hess, BG, BP, ChevronTexaco,
ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, JNOC, Norsk Hydro, Shell, Statoil and
Total, and precursors of those companies. Further support was
provided by the UK Natural Environment Research Council. Norsk
Hydro and BP kindly provided log data and samples. Gareth Yardley
and Steve Larter are thanked for their very useful reviews.
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