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Multifractal characteristics of natural fracture apertures
Author(s) -
Belfield William C.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/94gl02409
Subject(s) - multifractal system , scaling , fracture (geology) , cascade , geology , cluster analysis , scale (ratio) , multiplicative function , fractal , geometry , physics , mathematics , statistics , geotechnical engineering , mathematical analysis , chemistry , chromatography , quantum mechanics
Using information acquired from microscanner logs in horizontal boreholes, fracture apertures are shown to be characterized by multifractal scaling. A representative f‐α spectrum can be modeled using a multiplicative cascade based on a two‐scale Cantor set. The resulting cascade can be used to simulate fracture aperture distributions at any scale. When compared to well data, the simulations show good agreement with aperture sizes and reproduce the clustering commonly recognized in fracture networks.