A global petrophysical database for igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks

Abstract. Petrophysical properties such as porosity, permeability and thermal conductivity are required to support modelling and data interpretation in many geoscientific fields, including groundwater management, carbon geo-sequestration, resource exploration, and subsurface waste disposal. Collation of petrophysical property data from the literature is time consuming, often hampered by inconsistent or incomplete metadata. Existing petrophysical property databases are limited in their geographic extent, or in the range of included properties, rock types or measurement techniques. Motivated by these challenges, a Global Petrophysical Database (GPD) has been developed (Sheldon et al., 2026), incorporating data from more than 600 publications including 10 existing databases and covering 70 countries. Both in-situ and laboratory measurements are included. The database focuses primarily on properties that control subsurface fluid flow, mass transport and heat transport. The GPD is publicly accessible at https://doi.org/10.25919/e8f9-n090 (Sheldon et al., 2026), supported by a graphical web interface, the Global Petrophysical Database Explorer, to facilitate rapid exploration and visualization of the data.