We integrate application-oriented and basic research to enhance the understanding towards a sustainable use of Georesources. This emphazies a balanced approach to scientific innovation and societal needs, ensuring efficient resource management of raw materials and sustainable energy solutions.

What we do?

Our applied and fundamental research improves models on mechanical and chemical rock properties as well as rock magnetics to better predict heterogeneities of reservoirs and seals in the subsurface. We analyze processes, techno-economical utilization concepts and value chains for energy and mineral resources to identify strategic options. Our innovations contribute to the efficient exploration and use of renewable energy, hydrocarbons, raw materials and subsurface storage.

Our education and research interests are on

• rock deformation: rock mechanics from grain- to plug scale, fractures & veins from grain to reservoir scale
• rock alteration (diagenesis): grain scale dissolution and precipitation in a reservoir
• rock magnetics: grain scale to plug scale alteration due to deformation
• strategic analyses (which we call STEEL-PEG): S - social, T - technological, E - economical, E - environmental, L - legal, P - political, E - ethical, G - geological factors)

Our geology research focuses on the grain- to reservoir scale.

Our outreach focuses on strategic analyses and is interdisciplinary, integrated and international.

Our innovation towards industry is hosted within the Technology Transfer Unit TTE Reservoir-Geology at KIT Campus Transfer GmbH. 

Our approach and labs?

Our applied and fundamental research focuses on analytical and experimental approaches as strategic analyses related to georesources such as raw materials and energy.

• Analytical approaches cover the full range covering micro-, plug-, core- and outcrop scale using various tools and processes provided by our Reservoir Characterization Lab (RCL) and Rock Magnetic Lab (RML).
• Experimental approaches cover micro- to plug-scale taken from rock core, outcrops and materials such as cement and concrete, using various tools and processes provided by our Microstructure Experimental Lab (MEL).
• Strategic analyses are based on data analyses of processes, techno-economical utilization concepts and value chains for energy and mineral resources with a geological perspective.

Our education covers classes on basic and advanced geology as well as project- and energy-ressources management.

Our research is based on three labs we built up over the last years: 

• Microstructure Experimental Lab (MEL) to understand rock deformation and rock alteration processes
• Reservoir Characterization Lab (RCL)
• Rock Magnetics Lab (RML)

We closely work with colleagues within

• KIT Applied Geosciences AGW,
• KIT-IAM Material Sciences (MMS) on reactive 3D digital rocks using phase-field modeling,
• KIT-Civil Engineering (IBF, IMB/MPA) on concrete alteration and rock mechanics,
• KIT-Economics (IIP) on value chains, KIT-Mechanical Engineering (wbk) on resource efficient circular systems (RECS, circular economy)
• USA (BEG), India (IIT Karaghpur, IIT Kanpur), Japan (Tohoku University), Egypt (Cairo), Germany (GFZ, BGR), Morocco (Ibn Zohr University Agadir), Tunis (University El Manar), China (Tongji University) and beyond.

Our fundamental research is hosted in KIT, innovation towards industry is also hosted within the Technology Transfer Unit TTE Reservoir-Geology at KIT Campus Transfer GmbH if applicable.

Microstructure Experimental Lab (MEL)

MEL is headed by Dr. Chaojie Cheng.

Reservoir Characterization Lab (RCL Lab)

RCL is headed by Dr. Benjamin Busch.

​Rock Magnetics Lab (RML)

RML is headed by Prof. Dr. Agnes Kontny.

General information

What is a reservoir?

Reservoirs are temporary or permanent, natural or man-made subsurface storage sites.

Reservoirs are important

• to produce natural georesources such as gas and oil (still required as energy source and for materials), ground heat / geothermal energy, raw materials such as nitrogen and helium gas, lithium from brines and eventually natural hydrogen.
• as interim storage sites, such as stored gas and oil to bridge winter season and for national security, to store access heat or fluids for industrial applications
• as permanent storage sites, such as toxic waste (fly ashes and other industry waste) and repositories for nuclear fuels.

Reservoirs are porous rock such as sandstones, fractured rock such as carbonate rock, and man-made dissolved caverns in rocksalt. 

What is a seal?

Subsurface reservoirs require lateral seals and top seals to keep the stored material on-site. Otherwise the stored material would leak. Thus, both reservoirs and seals need to be studied to reduced risk and increase safety. Fluid pressure-, temperature-, rock alteration- and stress changes may affect properties of the reservoir and the seal.

Top seals and bottom seals are claystone, shale and rock salt. Lateral seals are layering pinching out laterally, or sealed faults. Fault sealing may be to cementation but more frequently to claystone smeared into the fault plane (clay smear).

What is rock magnetics?

Rock magnetic fabric and its anisotropy is studied from sedimentary to basement rocks and is applied on a wide range of geological processes. This ranges from microstructural analyses to stratigraphic correlations. Our broad experience in the field of rock magnetism contributes to fundamental geological processes and well correlations.

Fig. 7. High-resolution SEM of shocked magnetites. Left: Dissolution/degassing of Fe-Mg-Al silicate. Middle: Dashed lines show shear bands of 5 GPa shocked magnetite. Right: 120° grain boundaries at 20 GPa shocked magnetite sample (from Kontny et al. 2018).

A digital fractured reservoir analog?

We develop digital fracture models and -distributions in reservoirs from contact-free digitalization and analysis of rocks such as UAV, Lidar and hyperspectral imaging to better constrain the anisotropy and heterogeneity of 3D rock volumes (Fig. 2). Digital fractures from horizontal wells are subjected to in-situ stress to calculate conductive joints (Fig. 3). Microstructures in salt can be used to deduce creep rates for subsurface- and well integrity from microstructures. Deformation processes in salt and claystone as well as nano-tectonics in hardrocks open new methods of rock analysis.

Fig. 2. 3D laser scan (grey) of the large quarry Piesberg near Osnabruck. The gently dipping bedding planes (green), the tectonic normal fault (blue) form the structure of the reservoir analog. The laser scan (grey) with trees on the upper berm (white arrow). The fracture pattern (joints) are colored according to their spatial orienation (yellow, blue, red) and populated in the geological model to calculate the flow properties of the reservoir (from Wüstefeld et al. 2018).

Fig. 3. Fracture distribution and orientation along horizontal well in fractured carbonates subsalt. Color-coded the potential of each fracture to open (upper row) and slip (lower rock) (from Becker et al 2019).

Predicting porosity & permeability (reservoir quality prediction modeling)?

We predict the cementation of pore space and associated physico-chemical alteration  using experimental approaches under lab conditions and the study of real rocks as an experiment at natural conditions. Our custom-made experimental see-through transparent and bulk microreactors simulate reactive geofluids in rocks causing rock alteration, change of porosity and permeability. Experimental and real rock analysis result in equations of rates (change).

These rate equations are implemented in software based reservoir quality prediction models such as

• Touchstone modeling software by Dr. Rob Lander and Dr. Linda Bonnell, Geocosm LLC, USA, and in
• phase-field microstructure modelling software Pace3D by Prof. Dr. Britta Nestler and Team, KIT (IAM-MMS).

s.

Fig. 5. Subsidence model and temperature scenario for 5 different wells matches with modelled illite cementation and experimentally measured K-Ar ages of authigenic illites. We thus can use the amount of quartz and illite cements to validate different thermal models, and thus better constrain the calcualted pore volume and permeability at depth (from Busch et al. 2018).

What is rock alteration (diagenesis)?

The characterization of rocks is a key to assess reservoir quality and seal integrity. We characterize the reservoir to deduce the reasons of anisotropy of the geological rock body to better understand variable rock properties caused by structural, sedimentary and chemical processes. Outcrops, drill cores from boreholes as well as mines of the quarry and pit industry are studied worldwide. Characterization includes, but is not limited to, deformation, diagenesis, which we clal "Structural Diagenesis" (Fig. 4).

Reservoir characterization includes mineral fabric, diagenesis, rock magnetics, spectral Gamma Ray, vp/vs wave velocities in rock, as well as porosity and permeability analyses. Our seismic velocities on plugs can deduce porosity and geomechanical properties.

With our sGR, vp/vs and handheld XRF we couple rock data from analogs and cores with well logs. Based on such data we deduce models for other reservoirs.

Fig. 4. Transparent thin section with blue colored pore space under optical light microscope with plane (left) and crossed (right) polarizers shows secondary pore space due to dissolved feldspar grain. Associated quartz migration and formation of kaolinite clay minerals are replaced by illite clay minerals (from Busch et al. 2017).

Digital flow and reactions in 3D digital rocks

We develop new digital tools with IAM-MMS Prof. Nestler within KIT and beyond. Our research aims to better predict rock properties by improving the understanding of underlying processes. We feed rock-, reaction- and fluid flow data from natural experiments and lab experiments, which are then modeled and calibrated. Then, numerical experiments may allow digital experiments at conditions impossible to run in the lab.

The 3D grain fabric can be compacted, sealed with quartz and carbonate, covers the shielding effect of coating clays on quartz, grain scale fractures and multiphase-fluid flow within certain conditions.

We drive the modeling with digital rocks jointly with our colleagues.

Fig. 6. Digital rock models in mulitphase flow of gas-formation water predict flow channels and permeability tensors for different sandstones of mono- and polycrystalline quartz grains (from Prajapati et al. 2020).

Management

We consider the full value chain from exploration to storage of energy- and raw material deposits addressing STEEL-PEG environmental factor for strategic analyses. STEEL-PEG stands for the macro-environmental factors social, technological, economic, environmental, legal, political, ethical and geological. We consider resilient supply of construction- and metal raw materials, organic raw material (fossil fuels) for energy bridging technology and indispensable raw material for the chemical industry, as well as associated industrial processes (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. a) The global population will grow by another 2-3 bio. until 2080, however global wealth (associated with energy- and raw material consumption) increases more rapidly. b) The demand of metals such as copper and europium (a rare earth metal) both grow per captia and in total volume (Hilgers et al. 2021).

Interdisciplinary projects cover technical to economic studies. Studies covered risk management of longwall mining, technical aspects of pipeline infrastructure, pump storage plants on dismantled open pit lignite mines, natural gas supply models for Eastern Europe with imported US shale gas, real options approaches for compressed air energy or economic feasibility of power-to-gas load balancing (hydrogen & green methane) (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Principal outline for economic calculations for P2X hydrogen and green methane gas (Budny et al. 2015).

Our experience covers the planning and operation of private higher education institutions overseas, and the development and management of interdisciplinary training courses in close cooperation with industry. Previous projects focused on the implementation of the German University of Technology GUTech LLC (Fig., info) in beautiful Muscat, Oman, and training courses on geothermal and fossil energy, medicine and mining in Tunisia, Morocco together with Egypt.

Fig. 10. The German University of Technology in Muscat, Oman.

Tools: CrystalBall, MiniTab, MS Project & Visio and special tools.

Outreach