An intelligent lithology recognition system for continental shale by using digital coring images and convolutional neural networks

Lithology identification is a critical component of reservoir evaluation and hydrocarbon development. However, the continental shale rocks, characterized by complex lithologies and developed laminations, present new challenges to traditional lithology identification techniques. In this study, we develop a centimeter-level intelligent identification system for continental shale lithology, leveraging digital image preprocessing and deep learning methods. Specifically, we construct a dataset from 400 meters of drilling cores, encompassing 24 types of lithology and 152 lithological transitions. The downsampling and oversampling methods are employed to balance the dataset. The digital image denoising and restoration techniques are then utilized to enhance rock image features. Different neural network models are examined to obtain the optimum predictive results. The results indicate that data balancing improves the TOP1 and TOP5 accuracies by 10% and 5%, respectively. Gaussian low-pass filter denoising, in comparison to other methods, increases the TOP1 and TOP5 accuracies by 2%, establishing it as the superior denoising technique for lithology recognition. Considering both computational efficiency and prediction accuracy, EfficientNet emerges as the most effective model for continental shale image recognition. The optimized model attains up to 60% TOP1 and 95% TOP5 across 22 categories in drilling core samples. This study delves into the intelligent identification of macroscopic drilling core images of continental shale, and the findings can offer technical support for the interpretation and evaluation of continental shale reservoirs.