Non-destructive porosity determinations of Antarctic marine sediments derived from resistivity measurements with an inductive method

The fractional porosity of marine sediments is one of the fundamental index properties of rocks. For the determination of porosity a nondestructive, inductive method was used on unsplit sediment cores. The results were compared with galvanically measured resistivities using a miniature Wenner array on split cores. The measurements agree well except for cores with high clay content where measurement frequency related effects cause a resistivity difference of about 10%. Porosities were derived from resistivities using a published resistivity-porosity relationship by Boyce (1968) and compared with sample porosities. A comparison of both data sets shows good agreement.