It remains difficult to relate shale nanoscale measurements to core- and block-scale properties because of the heterogeneous structure of shale. One of the main reasons for this difficulty is the heterogeneity of natural nanogranular media, which is scale dependent. In this study, we propose a new conceptual model for the elastic deformation of a shale formation. The conceptual model accounts for the effective stiffness of small-scale constitutive entities at a large scale. We use the proposed model to determine macroscale Young's moduli by analyzing nanoindentations. Independent macroscale measurements corroborate our model.
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