Texture effects on megahertz dielectric properties of calcite rock samples

Abstract

Dielectric measurements have been made from 0.5 to 1300 MHz on Whitestone, a quarried calcite rock, saturated with salty water. Whitestone shows a large increase in dielectric permittivity (dispersion) at the low end of this frequency range. When the conductivity of the water is varied, the dielectric permittivity of Whitestone is found to scale as water conductivity/frequency, i.e., as the complex dielectric constant of water. This is believed to be unique in measurements on insulator‐conductor mixtures, and establishes that the dispersion is primarily caused by the geometry of the sample. Two other calcite samples show much lower dielectric dispersion. Micrographs indicate that the variation in dispersion among the three samples is in rough proportion to grain platiness. This is consistent with the platey grain mechanism, one of three mechanisms proposed by Sen to explain dielectric dispersion in water‐saturated rocks. A model consisting of water containing insulating spheroids of identical aspect ratio, isotropically distributed in orientation, predicts that increased grain platiness reduces both low‐frequency conductivity and high‐frequency dielectric permittivity in a closely related way; this is observed experimentally. However, this model does not fit simultaneously all electrical properties of Whitestone; evidently a more complex geometrical model is needed. Dielectric dispersion caused by texture is of practical importance in estimating water content of subsurface rocks from borehole measurements of dielectric permittivity, particularly at high water salinities.