Physical modelling of sand injectites

Sand injectites are structures that result from intrusion of fluidized sand into fractures. We have studied them in the Tampen Spur area of the North Sea, and have reproduced them experimentally, by driving compressed air through layers of sand, glass microspheres, and silica powder. The silica powder was cohesive and capable of hydraulic fracturing, whereas the sand and glass microspheres were almost non-cohesive and therefore able to fluidize. The models were dynamically similar to their natural counterparts, for as long as equilibrium was static. When the processes became dynamic, so that inertial forces were significant, the scaling was approximate and the corresponding Reynolds numbers differed. The experimental apparatus was a square box, 1 m × 1 m wide, resting on a grid of fluid diffusers. During the experiments, the fluid pressure increased, until it attained and surpassed the weight of overburden. Flat-lying hydraulic fractures, containing air, formed within cohesive and least permeable layers. Heterogeneities in material properties and layer thicknesses were responsible for localizing fracture networks. When any one network broke through to the surface, rapid flow of air through the fractures fluidized the underlying mobile materials and even depleted some of the layers. Some of the fluidized material extruded at the surface through vents, forming volcanoes and sheets. The remainder lodged at depth, forming sand injectites or laccoliths. Conical sand injectites formed preferentially, where layers had high resistance to bending. Laccoliths formed nearer the surface, where overlying layers had low resistance to bending. The experimental sand injectites were broadly similar to those in the Tampen Spur area of the North Sea, as well as other areas.     

Development and flow structures of sand injectites: The Hind Sandstone Member injectite complex,Carboniferous, UK

The Hind Sandstone Member of the Carboniferous Craven Basin occurs within a thick succession of marine mudstone and is here interpreted as a sandstone injectite complex. Injectites take the form of (i) sills; (ii) upwards emplaced dykes; (iii) downwards emplaced dykes; (iv) a sedimentary laccolith; and (v) sandstone bodies remobilised in-situ. The remobilised and injected sand originated from small turbidite scour fills and potentially a more significant sand body such as a submarine slope gully fill. The sedimentary laccolith appears to jack-up the units it injects, and is filled by sandstone with a chaotic fabric suggestive of brecciation of partly cemented sand. The laccolith and sill-dominated nature are suggestive of relatively shallow remobilisation. Sills are commonly laterally gradational with upwards emplaced dykes, and in some cases these feed apparently downwards emplaced dykes. A series of flow structures are preserved within some of the injectites, and these provide clues to the emplacement history. Crack propagation direction is inferred from the orientation of undulating crests developed on the upper and lower surfaces of injectites. Peak-flow is indicated by scour marks, resembling flute and tool marks, which are superimposed onto these undulating surfaces. Internal flow structures highlighted by pyrite mineralistion record the waning stage of injection. The observed flow structures suggest that the apparent crack propagation direction was generally oblique to the peak flow, and nearly perpendicular to the direction of late-stage fluidised sediment flow. Crack propagation relates to the local stress field, whilst injection flow may be related to the local pore pressure distribution. Recognition of this suite of structures may provide a useful interpretational tool for other injectites in both core and outcrop. Pore fluid overpressure which drove injection developed through the migration of petroleum and mineralising fluids from the underlying Bowland Shales and older limestones. A complex brecciated fracture network within the mudstones underlying the injectites records fluid migration pathways. Sliced blocks and thin sections from injectites reveal flow structures defined by iron pyrite mineralisation. The trigger is here related to growth of compressional structures and associated syn-sedimentary slumps which occur at the same stratigraphic level as the injectites.