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Gamma Ray

The document discusses gamma ray logs, which measure the natural radioactivity in rock formations. Gamma rays are emitted from uranium, thorium, and potassium in the formations. A gamma ray log detects this radiation to analyze the lithology and clay content of the rocks, helping to identify boundaries between formations and correlate between wells. The log response is influenced by the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, and pair production of gamma rays interacting with the formation minerals and borehole environment. Modern spectral gamma ray logs can separate the total gamma ray reading into individual components of potassium, thorium, and uranium to better analyze mineral composition.

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Juan Chiroque
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45 views

Gamma Ray

The document discusses gamma ray logs, which measure the natural radioactivity in rock formations. Gamma rays are emitted from uranium, thorium, and potassium in the formations. A gamma ray log detects this radiation to analyze the lithology and clay content of the rocks, helping to identify boundaries between formations and correlate between wells. The log response is influenced by the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, and pair production of gamma rays interacting with the formation minerals and borehole environment. Modern spectral gamma ray logs can separate the total gamma ray reading into individual components of potassium, thorium, and uranium to better analyze mineral composition.

Uploaded by

Juan Chiroque
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Gamma Ray Log

GAMMA RAY LOG


Gamma Rays are high-energy electromagnetic waves which are
emitted by atomic nuclei as a form of radiation.
Gamma ray log is measurement of natural radioactivity in
formation verses depth.
It measures the radiation emitting from naturally occurring U, Th,
and K.
It is also known as shale log.
GR log reflects shale or clay content.
Clean formations have low radioactivity level.
Correlation between wells,
Determination of bed boundaries,
Evaluation of shale content within a formation,
Mineral analysis,
Depth control for log tie-ins, side-wall coring, or perforating.
Particularly useful for defining shale beds when the sp is
featureless,
GR log can be run in both open and cased hole.
Gamma rays can react with matter in three distinct
manners:

Photoelectric effect, where a gamma ray collides with an electron,
is absorbed, and transfers all of its energy to that electron. In this
case, the electron is ejected from the atom.

Compton scattering, where a gamma ray collides with an electron
orbiting some nucleus. In this case, the electron is ejected from its
orbit and the incident gamma ray loses energy.

Pair production, where a gamma ray interacts with an atom to
produce an electron and positron. These will later recombine to
form another gamma ray.
Photoelectric interaction can be monitored to
find the lithology-related parameter, Pe.

For the conventional density measurement,
only the Compton scattering of gamma rays is
of interest.

Conventional logging sources do not emit
gamma rays with sufficient energies to induce
pair production, therefore pair production will
not be a topic of this discussion.
GAMMA RAY LOGS:

Of the 104 (108?) naturally occurring elements, 83
have more than one form, or isotope. Isotopes are
inherently unstable and, over time, decay to the lower
energy, stable form. The half life of an isotope may be
millions of years, days, or even milliseconds.

The most common isotopes are the uranium series,
the thorium series, and potassium, which has only one
isotope. These elements are found in nature, and
amongst other things, emit natural gamma rays that
can be detected by a logging tool in a borehole.

Each of the above elements naturally emits gamma
rays which are distinctive in both number and energy.
One gram of potassium 40 emits an average of 3.4
photons per second at a fixed 1.46 MeV energy. But an
equal weight of either thorium or uranium produces
respectively 12,000 or 26,000 gamma rays per second
with a spectrum of energies that average 0.5 MeV.


In the logging industry, gamma ray flux has been recorded in
micrograms Radium equivalent per ton (ug Ra equiv / ton) prior to
about 1960. After that time, logs were calibrated in API units based on
known radiation levels of artificial formations in test pits located in
Houston. The usual scale for old style logs was 0 to 10 ug Ra and 0 to
100, 0 to 120, or 0 to 150 API units for newer logs.

There is an exact conversion between ug Ra and API units but since
the old logging tools were rarely calibrated, this conversion is seldom
useful. The pragmatic solution is to multiply ug Ra by 10 to obtain an
approximate API units scale.

The counting rate at the detector in a gamma ray logging tool is
naturally influenced by the tool itself and the borehole environment.
However, the primary response will be related to the number of atoms
per unit mass emitting gamma rays.

In gamma ray spectral logging, the three main gamma ray contributors,
potassium, thorium, and uranium, give gamma rays of different energy
levels. By appropriate filtering, the total gamma ray flux can be
separated into the three components. This aids log analysis as thorium is
a good shale indicator when uranium masks the total GR response.
Thorium-potassium ratio and other combinations of curves can be used
for mineral identification and clay typing. Finally, uranium counts can
be subtracted from the total counts to give a uranium corrected gamma
ray curve that is easier to use and to correlate from well to well.

Figure 19.46: Spectral breakdown of total GR into its three major
components
Gamma rays emitted by the formation rarely reach the detector
directly. Instead, they are scattered and lose energy through three
possible interactions with the formation; the photoelectric effect,
Compton scattering, and pair production. Because of these
interactions and the response of the sodium iodide scintillation
detector, the spectra are degraded to the rather smeared
spectra shown in Figure 19.46.

The high-energy part of the detected spectrum is divided into
three energy windows, W1, W2, and W3; each covering a
characteristic peak of the three radioactivity series. Knowing the
response of the tool and the number of counts in each window, it
is possible to determine the amounts of thorium 232, uranium
238, and potassium 40 in the formation. There are relatively few
counts in the high-energy range where peak discrimination is
best; therefore, measurements are subject to large statistical
variations, even at low logging speeds.
Figure 19.47: Gamma Ray
Spectral Log Presentation.
Note difference between
standard gamma ray
(SGR) and uranium
corrected gamma ray
(CGR).
By including a contribution from the high-
count rate, low-energy part of the spectrum
(Windows W4 and W5), these high statistical
variations in the high-energy windows can be
reduced by a factor of 1.5 to 2. The statistics
are further reduced by another factor of 1.5 to
2 by using a filtering technique that compares
the counts at a particular depth with the
previous values in such a way that spurious
changes are eliminated while the effects of
formation changes are retained.

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