Characterisation of the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Group

Full Project Title:

Quantitative characterisation of the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Group: suitability for long-term carbon capture and underground storage, Cheshire, United Kingdom

Project Overview

This is a Geosolutions Leeds-funded Master's by Research project, running from 1 September 2024, to 31 August 2025.

With the United Kingdom (UK) setting out to achieve net zero by the year 2050, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an essential technique to help reduce CO₂ emission to the atmosphere. Globally, it's predicted that ~5.64 billion tonnes of CO₂ must be stored (sequestered) each year to exert a notable impact on mitigating anthropogenic climate change (Loria et al., 2021). Furthermore, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that without CCS, previously agreed UK emission targets would be unlikely to be achieved (Suleman et al., 2023).

The Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Group (SSG) is well-exposed within the Cheshire, Stafford, and Needwood basins and is one of the UK's most important rock successions, planned to serve as major reservoirs for long-term carbon capture and underground storage (CCS). The SSG comprises a thick succession of sandstones, predominantly of fluvial and aeolian origin. The group features varying levels of permeability (heterogeneity), which is essential to ensure liquefied CO₂ is successfully stored. Heterogeneity within the SSG originates from sandstones interbedded with indurated subordinate mudstone, siltstone and argillaceous halite deposits of mixed fluvial floodplain, lacustrine and evaporite. Information characterising this heterogeneity is limited, and yet is essential for flow to be simulated through the SSG succession, which will allow reservoir quality and flow pathways to be quantified properly in areas away from depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs in the East Irish Sea Basin.

This study will characterize quantitative lithological heterogeneity in successions of the SSG. Data collection will take place within the Cheshire, Stafford and Needwood basins, including 1D sedimentary logs, 2D architectural panels and paleocurrent data. The main objective is to develop quantitative facies models describing the geometry, proportion and juxtaposition of sedimentary geobodies of the SSG, which will all be compiled into a sedimentological database. Collected data will also be combined with existing datasets from the Fluvial Architecture Knowledge Transfer Store (FAKTS) and the Database of Aeolian Sedimentary Architecture (DASA) to produce suitable reservoir and stochastic models to construct 3D quantitative geological models of the SSG at scales suitable for CO₂ flow modelling.

Research Team