Effect of Overpressure on Rock Frame and Its Implications for Overpressure Evolution

Overpressure is a hot topic in the study of sedimentary basins. It is important in generation, maturation migration, and accumulation of hydrocarbon, but the effects of overpressure on rock frame have not been investigated. In this study, experiments were carried out to study the effects of overpressure on rock frame structures using five core samples from the Junggar basin, Northwest China. The deformations and velocities for the samples were measured at different effective pressures related to non-equilibrium compaction and fluid expansion overpressure mechanisms. The results show that the effect of overpressure on rock frames gradually increases when the effective pressure drops down to a certain value (called critical pressure). Moreover, non-equilibrium compaction mechanism has more effects on rock frames than fluid expansion mechanism under the same effective pressure. Furthermore to study rock frame structural changes, we use Kuster and Toks?z's expressions to simulate the effective aspect ratios of inclusions α (penny shapes) for different effective pressures. The results show that the α decreases dramatically when the effective pressure decreases from the critical pressure. Changes of α can be interpreted as responses to the rock frame changes when grains conform one another by rotating and self-adjusting. However, different mechanisms of overpressure have different effects on rock frames. The rock frame can be affected more easily by overpressure in shallow regions generated by non-equilibrium compaction mechanism. Once this kind of rock frames are preserved after overpressure releases to a normal hydrostatic pressure, they can be identified by their specific rock frame characters. This method provides a new way to study overpressure release and fluid migration and accumulation.