Preliminary hyperspectral imaging of diagenetic cements from the Ben Nevis Reservoir, Jeanne d’Arc Basin, offshore Newfoundland

Cements often occlude porosity and permeability within siliciclastic reservoir rocks and their paragenesis has been studied extensively in various reservoirs worldwide. Of particular importance in clastic reservoir rocks is the development of carbonate cements, which can act as barriers to flow and may react with injected fluids such as CO2. Hyperspectral analysis (HSI) is a commonly applied technique in the mining industry to investigate drill core samples for mineral identification. More recently, this technology has been used to characterize different phases of both primary and diagenetic carbonate cements in outcrop studies. Using HSI, it is also possible to infer total organic carbon and mineralogical data from fine-grained subsurface drill core. However, these data still require validation through complementary methods such as thin-section petrography and qualitative geochemical analysis to ensure that spectra are linked to their respective phases. This study aims to broaden our understanding of the paragenesis of calcite, dolomite, and siderite cements in the Early Cretaceous Ben Nevis Formation from drill cores in the Hebron field, Jeanne d’Arc Basin, offshore Newfoundland. This is achieved by building on previous methods using short-wave infrared reflectance spectra (SWIR 970–2710 nm) to investigate carbonate paragenesis including the associated early diagenetic and later burial ferroan cementation. These data indicate strong Fe absorption bands in the SWIR (~1200 nm) and Ca–Mg absorption bands (2300–2335 nm) facilitating semiquantitative mapping between ferroan and non-ferroan calcite-cemented zones in core. Results are integrated with XRF-derived chemofacies, petrography, paleoenvironmental interpretations, wireline logging data and reservoir properties to map the spatial distribution of carbonate cement phases within the Ben Nevis Formation. This dataset will help constrain their paragenetic evolution, refine estimates of their abundance, and support interpretations of both their origins and the transport pathways for late-stage diagenetic fluids that have produced highly cemented zones.