Elucidating the formation mechanism of organic-rich shale holds significant implications for hydrocarbon exploration, carbon sequestration, and carbon cycling. In recent years, the relationship between organic matter and clay minerals in shale has attracted widespread attention. This study aims to comprehensively overview the interactions between organic matter and clay minerals during deposition and diagenesis. Through sedimentation processes, climate and provenance control the composition of clay minerals in sediments jointly. Meanwhile, clay minerals exhibit selective adsorption of organic matter, thereby influencing the abundance and type of organic matter in sediments. In modern marine depositional environments, the interaction between clay minerals and organic matter significantly impacts the overall activity and burial efficiency of organic carbon. During the diagenesis stage, the presence of organic matter dramatically affects the transformation of smectite into illite. Conversely, the process of smectite illitization also exerts a significant influence on hydrocarbon generation. Furthermore, this study introduces state-of-the-art techniques to investigate the interactions between organic matter and clay minerals.

It is of great significance to accurately and rapidly identify shale lithofacies in relation to the evaluation and prediction of sweet spots for shale oil and gas reservoirs. To address the problem of low resolution in logging curves, this study establishes a grayscale-phase model based on high-resolution grayscale curves using clustering analysis algorithms for shale lithofacies identification, working with the Shahejie Formation, Bohai Bay Basin, China. The grayscale phase is defined as the sum of absolute grayscale and relative amplitude as well as their features. The absolute grayscale is the absolute magnitude of the gray values and is utilized for evaluating the material composition (mineral composition + total organic carbon) of shale, while the relative amplitude is the difference between adjacent gray values and is used to identify the shale structure type. The research results show that the grayscale phase model can identify shale lithofacies well, and the accuracy and applicability of this model were verified by the fitting relationship between absolute grayscale and shale mineral composition, as well as corresponding relationships between relative amplitudes and laminae development in shales. Four lithofacies are identified in the target layer of the study area: massive mixed shale, laminated mixed shale, massive calcareous shale and laminated calcareous shale. This method can not only effectively characterize the material composition of shale, but also numerically characterize the development degree of shale laminae, and solve the problem that difficult to identify millimeter-scale laminae based on logging curves, which can provide technical support for shale lithofacies identification, sweet spot evaluation and prediction of complex continental lacustrine basins.

The brittleness of shales is critical to hydraulic fracturing since rock with high brittle minerals are more likely to fracture and maintain open fractures. Shale rocks have a wide range of constituting components, and different minerals display distinct elastic behavior. The microscale measurements of mechanical properties indicate that pyrite has the highest Young’s modulus, followed by quartz and feldspar. Organic matter was commonly recognized as the soft component, and has very low Young’s modulus. Alkaline minerals show similar Young’s modulus values to quartz and feldspar, and can be grouped into brittle minerals. The relative content, source and structure of brittle minerals can affect rock brittleness from multiple scales. Understanding the relationship between mineral compositions and geomechanical properties is beneficial for fracability estimation in engineering applications for shales.

Tectonism is one of the dominant factors affecting the shale pore structure. However, the control of shale pore structure by tectonic movements is still controversial, which limits the research progress of shale gas accumulation mechanism in the complex tectonic region of southern China. In this study, 34 samples were collected from two exploratory wells located in different tectonic locations. Diverse experiments, e.g., organic geochemistry, XRD analysis, FE-SEM, low-pressure gas adsorption, and high-pressure mercury intrusion, were conducted to fully characterize the shale reservoir. The TOC, Ro, and mineral composition of the shale samples between the two wells are similar, which reflects that the shale samples of the two wells have proximate pores-generating capacity and pores-supporting capacity. However, the pore characteristics of shale samples from two wells are significantly different. Compared with the stabilized zone shale, the porosity, pore volume, and specific surface area of the deformed zone shale were reduced by 60.61%, 64.85%, and 27.81%, respectively. Moreover, the macroscopic and fine pores were reduced by 54.01% and 84.95%, respectively. Fault activity and uplift denudation are not conducive to pore preservation, and the rigid basement of Huangling uplift can promote pore preservation. These three factors are important reasons for controlling the difference in pore structure between two wells shales. We established a conceptual model of shale pores evolution under different tectonic preservation conditions. This study is significant to clarify the scale of shale gas formation and enrichment in complex tectonic regions, and helps in the selection of shale sweet spots.

Quantitative analysis of free gas and adsorbed gas contents in shale reservoirs are great significance for efficient exploration and development of shale gas. Based on the isothermal adsorption experiment of shale samples from Wufeng-Longmaxi Formation of JYA well in Jiaoshiba area and Langmuir volume model, the relationship between shale adsorption capacity and temperature, pressure, organic carbon content, quartz and clay mineral content is analyzed. Besides, the key parameters such as Langmuir volume and Langmuir pressure are dynamically calibrated by combining grey correlation method. A new model for calculating adsorbed gas and free gas is established, which takes fully into account the formation temperature, pressure, total organic carbon and shale mineral components. The results showed that the gas content of shale calculated by the new dynamic modified model is in good agreement with the actual gas content characteristics of shale reservoirs. The new model fully takes into account the vertical and horizontal heterogeneity of mineral components and its influence on shale adsorption capacity. That is not only suitable for the tectonic stability area but also for the gas content analysis in the area with strong tectonic movement. It is concluded that the modified calculation model can effectively predict the adsorbed gas, free gas and total gas content of shale reservoirs under formation conditions, which can be used as an indicator for the analysis and prediction of the exploration and development potential of shale gas wells.