Erosion–dilation analysis for experimental and synthetic microstructures of sedimentary rock

Abstract Microstructures such as rock samples or simulated structures can be described and characterized by means of ideas of spatial statistics and mathematical morphology. A powerful approach is to transform a given 3D structure by operations of mathematical morphology such as dilation and erosion. This leads to families of structures, for which various characteristics can be determined, for example, porosity, specific connectivity number or correlation and connectivity functions. An application of this idea leads to a clear discrimination between a sample of Fontainebleau sandstone and two simulated samples.