As climate change accelerates, the transition to renewable energy systems, such as geothermal energy, underground hydrogen storage, and carbon capture and storage (CCS), are essential. These technologies rely on the exploitation of subsurface porous or fractured reservoirs whose hydraulic and mechanical behavior is fundamentally governed by geological heterogeneities comprising the natural variability in lithology, stratigraphic architecture, and structural fabric. This variability spans different spatial scales, from pore-scale contrasts in grain size and selective cementation, up to basin-scale facies distributions and fault networks, and exerts a strong control on fluid flow, mechanical response, and long-term storage or production performance. However, capturing this heterogeneity and connecting observations across spatial scales remains a major challenge, often limited by data resolution, sampling bias, and the difficulty of upscaling local measurements to reservoir- or basin-scale models.
This session brings together the different disciplines working on geological heterogeneity, with a focus on studies supporting the energy transition and sustainable subsurface use. Fundamental and methodological contributions, as well as applied case studies are welcome! Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Outcrop, core, and well-based characterization of geological heterogeneity in reservoir rocks
• Fault and fracture network architecture, damage zones, and structural controls on flow
• Depositional and stratigraphic controls on facies heterogeneity
• Diagenetic processes involving reservoirs
• Pore- to core-scale heterogeneity and its upscaling
• 3D geological, structural, stratigraphic and diagenetic modelling
• Single- and multiphase fluid-flow and reservoir modelling
• Representative elementary volumes (REVs) and multi-scale upscaling
• Applications to geothermal energy, CCS, and hydrogen storage
• Uncertainty quantification linking characterization to model predictions