Reactive-infiltration instabilities in rocks. Fracture dissolution

Abstract

A reactive fluid dissolving the surface of a uniform fracture will trigger an instability in the dissolution front, leading to spontaneous formation of pronounced well-spaced channels in the surrounding rock matrix. Although the underlying mechanism is similar to the wormhole instability in porous rocks there are significant differences in the physics, due to the absence of a steadily propagating reaction front. In previous work we have described the geophysical implications of this instability in regard to the formation of long conduits in soluble rocks. Here we describe a more general linear stability analysis, including axial diffusion, transport limited dissolution, non-linear kinetics, and a finite length system.

to be published in J. Fluid. Mech

References in corpus (2)

• The initial stages of cave formation: Beyond the one-dimensional paradigm
• Instabilities in the dissolution of a porous matrix

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Interacting length scales in the reactive-infiltration instability
• Reaction-infiltration instability in a compacting porous medium
• Direct observation of coupled geochemical and geomechanical impacts on chalk microstructural evolution under elevated CO2 pressure. Part I
• Dissolved CO2 stabilizes dissolution front and increases breakthrough porosity of natural porous materials
• Reactive infiltration instability amplifies the difference between geometric and reactive surface areas in natural porous materials
• Retraction of dissolution front in natural porous media
• Temporal pattern of entropy production induced by reactive infiltration instability in natural porous media
• Path selection during wormhole growth
• Structural barriers to complete homogenization and wormholing in dissolving porous and fractured rocks