A global assessment of effective fracture porosity and density in crystalline rocks
Abstract
Knowledge of effective fracture porosity in crystalline rocks is important for water resources, geological storage and subsurface biogeochemistry, but remains poorly constrained due to limited and regionally biased data. Here, we use global permeability datasets and equations that relate effective porosity and permeability to estimate effective porosity and hydraulically active fracture density for 27,966 points globally. The resulting global effective porosity distributions are right-skewed and show a power-law decrease with depth. The median and mean effective porosity values are much lower than previously assumed. The natural variability in effective porosity is much larger than parameter uncertainty, underscoring the robustness of our global trends. Low effective porosity implies enhanced fluid isolation in the crystalline crust, with implications for hydrogen and helium accumulation and the deep biosphere.
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BibTeX
@misc{berg2026global,
title = {{A global assessment of effective fracture porosity and density in crystalline rocks}},
author = {Josse Maria van den Berg and Elco Luijendijk and Grant Ferguson and Oliver Warr},
howpublished = {EarthArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31223/x5wn5x},
url = {https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/14795/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A global assessment of effective fracture porosity and density in crystalline rocks
AU - Josse Maria van den Berg
AU - Elco Luijendijk
AU - Grant Ferguson
AU - Oliver Warr
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/04
PB - EarthArXiv
DO - 10.31223/x5wn5x
UR - https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/14795/
AB - Knowledge of effective fracture porosity in crystalline rocks is important for water resources, geological storage and subsurface biogeochemistry, but remains poorly constrained due to limited and regionally biased data. Here, we use global permeability datasets and equations that relate effective porosity and permeability to estimate effective porosity and hydraulically active fracture density for 27,966 points globally. The resulting global effective porosity distributions are right-skewed and show a power-law decrease with depth. The median and mean effective porosity values are much lower than previously assumed. The natural variability in effective porosity is much larger than parameter uncertainty, underscoring the robustness of our global trends. Low effective porosity implies enhanced fluid isolation in the crystalline crust, with implications for hydrogen and helium accumulation and the deep biosphere.
ER -