THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PORE SPACE AND GRAIN SIZE

The objective of this project was to study the relationship between pore space and grain size. Semanggol formation was selected to be the area of interest for this project. Semanggol formation has attracted several geologists to study the geological structure and the stratigraphical distribution. However, this project was focusing towards the rock properties such as porosity and permeability since these are the major interest in petroleum industry. Using the samples taken which consist of different rock types and grain size, several experiments were conducted and the result was compared. Several experiments were conducted; thin section analysis to analyze the grain size and sorting, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to visualize the pore space of the samples and the Mercury Pressure Porosimetry analysis to estimate several important variables including porosity and permeability. The results then were compared before the outcome of the project was finalized. Based on Guodong Jin, Carlos Torres-Verdin, and Chun Lan (2009), grain shape effects towards the pore space did exist. According to their research, bigger grain shape will decrease the porosity but at the same time increase the permeability. Based on these findings, the study was done towards the samples obtained to study the relationship between pore space and grain size.