Builds directly on FReMUK, addressing a gap it left open: fracture aperture is the single biggest control on reservoir permeability, but how it actually varies — and how much that variation matters for real reservoir performance — is still poorly quantified, especially for “pull-apart” structures that form along strike-slip and oblique faults and are known to create both channels and barriers to flow, sometimes within the same structure.
This project characterises pull-apart geometry and aperture variability at centimetre scale, using core-scale CT scans of drill core from Schweizer Salinen boreholes near Basel and from the producing Schlattingen geothermal well, alongside outcrop investigation in the Wutach Gorge — structurally comparable to the Muschelkalk reservoir target at around 1,000 m depth in northern Switzerland. It also applies in-situ U-Pb dating of fracture-filling calcite to establish when these flow pathways actually opened, addressing the long-standing reservoir-geology question of how confidently outcrop observations can stand in for subsurface behaviour.
Three work packages: characterising pull-apart and aperture variability at centimetre scale; assessing the resulting impact on modelled reservoir permeability; and dating the calcite to reconstruct the timing of past fluid flow through the Muschelkalk.