A WIKI-BASED ROCK PROPERTIES CATALOG FOR GEOLOGIC CO2 SEQUESTRATION MODELING

The increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions to the atmosphere is a growing concern that demands attention in order to preserve environments, habitats, species survival, and the current way of life. Long term geologic storage of CO₂ captured from large stationary emission sources has the potential to significantly reduce the amount released into the atmosphere. In order to move forward with sequestration technology, various testing must be performed to predict the outcome of subsurface CO₂ injections and to ensure successful storage with low environmental impact. Such testing includes iterative modeling of reactive transport processes. The efforts to gather data needed to perform these simulations can be labor and time intensive, and often unfruitful. A wiki-based rock properties catalog is currently being developed and populated with easily accessible data in order to shorten the time required to obtain parameters for model simulations, particularly for sites where characterization data are limited. This catalog will include geochemical, geophysical, and geomechanical rock property data. This offers a new, web accessible tool for modelers to more easily find key data such as porosity, permeability, mineral volume fractions, and associated reference information for different formations and rock types. With the ability to continually add new data the catalog is expected to expand over time and to provide a vital resource that greatly facilitates modeling efforts. With data collection for simulations being more timely and efficient, we may expect a wider range of scenarios and sites to be efficiently evaluated, thus increasing our ability to make a difference in global atmospheric emissions of anthropogenic CO₂.