Characterization on Structure and Fractal of Shale Nanopore: A Case Study of Fengcheng Formation in Hashan Area, Junggar Basin, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper characterize the nanostructure of Shale Formation by conducting TOC, XRD, SEM, and low temperature N₂ adsorption experiments, and Fractal theory. The paper is well written and represents an interesting results related to characterization of rocks with complex structures. Please, take into account the below suggestions:

-          Methods and theories: it is not clear whether all the equations cited in this section are coming from the references [35-37], or from other missed references?

-           I think some assessment of results accuracy or at least writing some sentences about that is important.

-          There are also wave propagation and attributes, such as energy losses (scattering and intrinsic attenuation), which are ignored by the author, although they are of high interest for the community. They are indirect tools to analyze shale microscopic pore structure. Therefore, I suggest that you add the below sentence or similar one at line 66,

“Energy losses of waves at sonic and ultrasonic scales are also a powerful indirect tools for microscopic investigation of shale pore structures, thanks to their sensitivity to pore shape and fluid content (e.g. Matsushima et al. 2017; Bouchaala et al., 2021)”

 

·         Matsushima, Jun, Mohammed Y. Ali, and Fateh Bouchaala. "A novel method for separating intrinsic and scattering attenuation for zero-offset vertical seismic profiling data." Geophysical Journal International 211, no. 3 (2017): 1655-1668.

·         Bouchaala, Fateh, Mohammed Y. Ali, and Jun Matsushima. "Compressional and shear wave attenuations from walkway VSP and sonic data in an offshore Abu Dhabi oilfield." Comptes Rendus. Géoscience 353, no. 1 (2021): 337-354.

I have added some corrections on the attached document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

 Don’t repeat the words used in the title in the keywords.

The manuscript requires moderate language correction.

The first time the author should use an acronym, write the phrase in full and place the acronym in parentheses immediately after it. You can then use the acronym throughout the rest of the text, including the abstract.

The introduction section was broad and can be precise. Try to rewrite it like a research paper with recent references.

Refer to and cite https://doi.org/10.1080/10916466.2022.2149795 for the betterment of the Introduction.

In the Figure 1 caption, give the longitude and latitude of the location.

Incorporate the comparison of different XRD spectra in a single image. Discuss the 2θ value for the XRD spectra in the discussion part.

 Incorporate the same resolution for all the SEM images for comparison.

Include error analysis for single-fractal and multiple-fractal correlation.

How was the extent of the scaling range issue identified and resolved?

In this context, how do fractal dimension and spectra estimation choices affect the results? Ideally, the choice would not influence the results.

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have incorporated the comments raised by Reviewer. The manuscript can be accepted