Open Access to “Pore-Scale Geochemical Processes” in Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry

The pore scale is readily recognizable to geochemists, and yet in the past it has not received a great deal of attention as a distinct scale or environment that is associated with its own set of questions and challenges. Is the pore scale merely an environment in which smaller scale (molecular) processes aggregate, or are there emergent phenomena unique to this scale? Is it simply a finer-grained version of the “continuum” scale that is addressed in larger-scale models and interpretations? One would argue that the scale is important because it accounts for the pore architecture within which such diverse processes as multi-mineral reaction networks, microbial community interaction, and transport play out, giving rise to new geochemical behavior that might not be understood or predicted by considering smaller or larger scales alone.

Fortunately, the last few years have seen a marked increase in the interest in pore-scale geochemical and mineralogical topics, making a Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry volume on the subject timely. One could argue that the convergence of state of the art microscopic characterization and high performance pore scale reactive transport modeling has made it possible to address a number of long-standing questions and enigmas in the Earth and Environmental Sciences. Among these is the so-called “laboratory-field discrepancy” in geochemical reaction rates, which may be traceable in part to the failure to consider pore-scale geochemical issues that include chemical and physical heterogeneity, suppression of precipitation in nanopores, and transport limitations to and from reactive mineral surfaces.

The volume includes 14 chapters on Transient Porosity Resulting from:

• Fluid–Mineral Interaction and its Consequences (A. Putnis)
• Pore-Scale Controls on Reaction-Driven Fracturing (A. Røyne, B. Jamtveit)
• Effects of Coupled Chemo-Mechanical Processes on the Evolution of Pore-Size Distributions in Geological Media (S. Emmanuel, L. Anovitz, R. Day-Stirrat)
• Characterization and Analysis of Porosity and Pore Structures (L. Anovitz, D. Cole)
• Precipitation in Pores: A Geochemical Frontier (A. Stack), Pore-Scale Process Coupling and Effective Surface Reaction Rates in Heterogeneous Subsurface Materials (C. Liu, Y. Liu, S. Kerisit, J. Zachara)
• Micro-Continuum Approaches for Modeling Pore-Scale Geochemical Processes (C. Steefel, L. Beckingham, G. Landrot)
• Resolving Time-dependent Evolution of Pore-Scale Structure, Permeability and Reactivity using X-ray Microtomography (C. Noiriel)
• Ionic Transport in Nano-Porous Clays with Consideration of Electrostatic Effects (C. Tournassat, C. Steefel)
• How Porosity Increases During Incipient Weathering of Crystalline Silicate Rocks (A. Navarre-Sitchler, S. Brantley, G. Rother)
• Isotopic Gradients Across Fluid–Mineral Boundaries (J. Druhan, S. Brown, C. Huber)
• Lattice Boltzmann-Based Approaches for Pore-Scale Reactive Transport (H. Yoon, Q. Kang, A. Valocchi)
• Mesoscale and Hybrid Models of Fluid Flow and Solute Transport (Y. Mehmani, M. Balhoff)
• Reactive Interfaces in Direct Numerical Simulation of Pore-Scale Processes (S. Molins)