Authigenic Carbonates As Natural Analogues of Mineralisation Trapping In
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Authigenic carbonates as natural analogues of mineralisation trapping in CO2 sequestration Progress Report and Preliminary Results ANLEC Project 7-1011-0189 G. K. W. Dawson, S.D. Golding, C.J. Boreham and T. Mernagh October 2013 | CO2CRC Report No: RPT13-4602 REPORT CO2CRC PARTICIPANTS Core Research Industry & Government Supporting Participants Participants Participants CSIRO ANLEC R&D CanSyd Australia Curtin University BG Group Charles Darwin University Geoscience Australia BHP Billiton Government of South Australia GNS Science BP Developments Australia Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Monash University Brown Coal Innovation Australia Process Group Simon Fraser University Chevron The Global CCS Institute University of Adelaide Dept. of Primary Industries - Victoria University of Queensland University of Melbourne Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment University of New South Wales INPEX University of Western Australia KIGAM NSW Government Dept. Trade & Investment Rio Tinto SASOL Shell Total Western Australia Dept. of Mines and Petroleum Glencore Xstrata Authigenic carbonates as natural analogues of mineralisation trapping in CO2 sequestration Progress Report and Preliminary Results Project 7-1011-0189 G. K. W. Dawson, S.D. Golding, C.J. Boreham and T. Mernagh Date of submission October 2013 CO2CRC Report No: RPT13-4602 1 Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge financial assistance provided to the CO2CRC by the Australian Government through its CRC program and through Australian National Low Emissions Coal Research and Development (ANLEC R&D). ANLEC R&D is supported by Australian Coal Association Low Emissions Technology Limited and the Australian Government through the Clean Energy Initiative. Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) GPO Box 463 Ground Floor NFF House, 14-16 Brisbane Avenue, Barton ACT 2600 CANBERRA ACT 2601 Phone: +61 2 6120 1600 Fax: +61 2 6273 7181 Email: [email protected] Web: www.co2crc.com.au Reference: G. K. W. Dawson, S.D. Golding, C.J. Boreham and T. Mernagh, 2013. Authigenic carbonates as natural analogues of mineralisation trapping in CO2 sequestration. Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies, Canberra, Australia, CO2CRC Publication Number RPT13-4602. 75pp. © CO2CRC 2012 Unless otherwise specified, the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) retains copyright over this publication through its incorporated entity, CO2CRC Ltd. You must not reproduce, distribute, publish, copy, transfer or commercially exploit any information contained in this publication that would be an infringement of any copyright, patent, trademark, design or other intellectual property right. Requests and inquiries concerning copyright should be addressed to the Communications and Media Adviser, CO2CRC, GPO Box 463, CANBERRA, ACT, 2601. Telephone: +61 2 6120 1600. 2 Table of Contents Index of Figures ................................................................................................................................................. 4 Index of Tables ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 6 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 9 2. Sampling strategy and descriptions......................................................................................................... 10 3. Initial geochemistry ................................................................................................................................. 29 3.1. Calcite stable isotopes ..................................................................................................................... 29 3.2. Calcite elemental abundances ......................................................................................................... 40 3.2.1. Major, minor, and trace element overview ............................................................................ 40 3.2.2. Rare earth elements plus yttrium (REY) and other related elements ..................................... 46 4. Fluid inclusion studies ............................................................................................................................. 60 4.1. Summary observations of fluid inclusion occurrence in Chinchilla 4 samples ................................ 61 4.2. Construction of an on-line fluid inclusion crusher .......................................................................... 64 5. Ongoing and future work for project ...................................................................................................... 67 6. References ............................................................................................................................................... 68 3 Index of Figures Figure 1: Map of the Surat Basin showing sites being assessed for evidence of significant carbonate cementation. ................................................................................................................................................... 12 Figure 2: Map of the Eromanga Basin showing sites being assessed for evidence of significant carbonate cementation. ................................................................................................................................................... 13 Figure 3: Surat Basin Kogan Creek mine massive carbonate mineralisation examples. Given that the average local coal is borderline brown coal to sub-bituminous low rank, the carbonate precipitation is expected to have occurred under relatively low temperature conditions generally and so is applicable to this study. a) and b) are samples of two up to 15 cm wide “chimneys” of massive calcite collected from within faults, c) very hard and apparently iron rich fault breccia containing large calcite veins, from clastic unit between coal seams, d) large calcite sheets with bornite and pyrite discs, from within coal master cleats (large systematic joints), e) calcite from shear surface containing brown probable syntectonic linear accessory phase, f) 4 mm thick calcite sheet from within fault, with probable syntectonic bornite and pyrite. .................................... 16 Figure 4: Carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of Surat and Eromanga calcite cements and veins. ...... 35 Figure 5: Carbon and oxygen isotope composition of calcite cements and fault veins in clastic units of the Surat and Eromanga basins. ............................................................................................................................ 35 Figure 6: Carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of calcite veins and chimneys in the Walloon Coal Measures at Kogan Creek coal mine, Surat Basin. .......................................................................................... 36 Figure 7: Major to moderate elemental abundances measured within fracture calcite samples via ICP-MS. 40 Figure 8: Moderate to minor elemental abundances measured within fracture calcite samples via ICP-MS. 41 Figure 9: Moderate to minor elemental abundances measured within fracture calcite samples via ICP-MS. 42 Figure 10: Scandium and uranium levels track each other for most samples excluding the Eromanga faults. ......................................................................................................................................................................... 42 Figure 11: Non-REY trace elemental abundances measured within fracture calcite samples via ICP-MS...... 43 Figure 12: Fracture calcite REY concentrations compared with marine carbonate (Webb and Kamber, 2000). ......................................................................................................................................................................... 46 Figure 13: Plot of sample La/Th ratios relative to the expected upper crustal ratio of 2.8 (centre line). ...... 47 Figure 14: Plot of sample La/Sc ratios relative to the expected upper crustal ratio of 1 (centre line). .......... 48 Figure 15: Plot of sample Th/U ratios relative to the expected upper crustal ratio of 3.8 (line). ................... 48 Figure 16: Variation diagram first proposed by Möller (1983); field positions plotted are based upon numerous analyses of samples from across the world. Samples that plot below the carbonatite- hydrothermal-metamorphic series are classed as “sedimentary process related”, with the rough positions of marine carbonate types between the dashed lines, and sea water composition plotted for reference. .. 49 Figure 17: PAAS-normalised REE data for fracture calcite samples. The majority of samples are enriched in HREE’s relative to LREE’s. ................................................................................................................................ 56 Figure 18: Calcite cemented Hutton Sandstone sample #256 (Chinchilla 4– 799m) contained rare two-phase, aqueous inclusions with 5 – 10 vol.% vapour that were sufficiently large for microthermometry. ............... 63 Figure 19: The heated fluid inclusion crusher and transfer line interfaced with Geoscience Australia’s Agilent 5893 GC-MS: ...................................................................................................................................................