Hydraulic sealing due to pressure solution contact zone growth in siliciclastic rock fractures

Thermo‐hydro‐mechanical‐chemical simulations at the pore scale are conducted to study the hydraulic sealing of siliciclastic rock fractures as contact zones grow driven by pressure dissolution. The evolving fluid‐saturated three‐dimensional pore space of the fracture results from the elastic contact between self‐affine, randomly rough surfaces in response to the effective confining pressure. A diffusion‐reaction equation controls pressure solution over contact zones as a function of their emergent geometry and stress variations. Results show that three coupled processes govern the evolution of the fracture's hydraulic properties: (1) the dissolution‐driven convergence of the opposing fracture walls acts to compact the pore space; (2) the growth of contact zones reduces the elastic compression of the pore space; and (3) the growth of contact zones leads to flow channeling and the presence of stagnant zones in the flow field. The dominant early time compaction mechanism is the elastic compression of the fracture void space, but this eventually becomes overshadowed by the irreversible process of pressure dissolution. Growing contact zones isolate void space and cause an increasing disproportion between average and hydraulic aperture. This results in the loss of hydraulic conductivity when the mean aperture is a third of its initial value and the contact ratio approaches the characteristic value of one half. Convergence rates depend on small‐wavelength roughness initially and on long‐wavelength roughness in the late time. The assumption of a characteristic roughness length scale, therefore, leads to a characteristic time scale with an underestimation of dissolution rates before and an overestimation thereafter.