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Boris Gurevich, Professor at Curtin U. and SEG Honorary Lecturer, presents a special talk at the MIT Earth Resources Laboratory: “Acoustics of partially saturated nanoporous media”
“Nanoporous materials provide high surface area per unit mass and are capable of fluids adsorption. While the measurements of overall amount of fluid adsorbed by a nanoporous sample are straightforward, probing the spatial distribution of fluids is non-trivial. We consider published data on adsorption and desorption of fluids in nanoporous glasses reported along with the measurements of ultrasonic wave propagation. We analyse these using Biot’s theory of dynamic poroelasticity, assuming the fluid saturation to be a random function of position with exponential correlation. Our calculations show that on adsorption the characteristic patch size is on the order of 100 pore diameters, while on desorption the patch size is comparable to the sample size. These results are supported by optical data for water-saturated glass. Our analysis suggests that commonly used rock physics theories such as Gassmann equation and patchy saturation model are applicable to nanoporous media.”
Boris Gurevich has MSc from Moscow State University (1981) and PhD from Moscow Institute of Geosystems (1988). In 1990s he worked at a number of institutions in Russia, Germany, UK and Israel before joining Curtin University and CSIRO in Perth, Australia in 2001 as Professor of Petroleum Geophysics. In 2010-2015 he served as head of Curtin’s Department of Exploration Geophysics. He is currently Director of the Curtin Reservoir Geophysics Consortium. In 2014 he spend a sabbatical semester at the ERL and keen to return at some point. His research interests include rock physics, poroelasticity, diffraction imaging, time lapse seismic monitoring and CO2 sequestration.