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Compressional and shear‐wave velocities were measured in the laboratory from 1 bar to 4 kbar confining pressure for wet, undrained samples of Cretaceous shales from depths of 3200 and 5000 ft in the Williston basin, North Dakota. These shales behave as transversely isotropic elastic media, the plane of circular symmetry coinciding with the bedding plane. For compressional waves, the velocity is higher for propagation in the bedding plane than at right angles to it, and the anisotropy is greater for the 5000-ft shale. For shear waves, the SH‐wave perpendicular to bedding and the SV‐wave parallel to bedding propagate with the same speed, which is about 25 percent lower than that for the SH‐wave parallel to bedding. In general, compressional and shear velocities are higher for the indurated 5000-ft shale than for the friable 3200-ft shale. All velocities increase with in‐increasing confining pressure to 4 kbar. The 3200-ft shale exhibits velocity hysteresis as a function of pressure, whereas this effect is almost nonexistent for the 5000-ft shale. Many features of the dependence of velocity on pressure can be explained by consideration of effective pressure and the degree of water saturation. For both shales, laboratory compressional wave velocities are on average 10 percent higher than log‐derived velocities. The discrepancy cannot be explained completely, but likely contributing factors are sampling bias, velocity dispersion, and formation damage in situ.

Phenomenological equations (with coefficients to be determined by specified experiments) for the poroelastic behavior of a dual porosity medium are formulated, and the coefficients in these linear equations are identified. The generalization from the single‐porosity case increases the number of independent coefficients for volume deformation from three to six for an isotropic applied stress. The physical interpretations are based upon considerations of different temporal and spatial scales. For very short times, both matrix and fractures behave in an undrained fashion. For very long times, the double‐porosity medium behaves like an equivalent single‐porosity medium. At the macroscopic spatial level, the pertinent parameters (such as the total compressibility) may be determined by appropriate field tests. At an intermediate or mesoscopic scale, pertinent parameters of the rock matrix can be determined directly through laboratory measurements on core, and the compressibility can be measured for a single fracture. All six coefficients are determined from the three poroelastic matrix coefficients and the fracture compressibility from the single assumption that the solid grain modulus of the composite is approximately the same as that of the matrix for a small fracture porosity. Under this assumption, the total compressibility and three‐dimensional storage coefficient of the composite are the volume averages of the matrix and fracture contributions.

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Measurements have been completed for eight different poroelastic moduli of water‐saturated Berea sandstone and Indiana limestone as a function of confining pressure and pore pressure. The poroelastic moduli for Indiana limestone are generally consistent to ±10%, which was verified by a formal inversion procedure for independent moduli from the eight measurements. For Indiana limestone, best fit values were drained bulk modulus, 21.2 GPa; the undrained bulk modulus, 31.7 GPa; drained Poisson's ratio, 0.26; undrained Poisson's ratio, 0.33; and pore pressure buildup coefficient, 0.47 at 20–35 MPa effective stress. The poroelastic moduli for Berea sandstone are generally consistent to ±20%. The greater inconsistency is most likely caused by the nonlinear variation of the moduli at different strains. For Berea sandstone, best fit values were drained bulk modulus, 6.6 GPa; undrained bulk modulus, 15.8 GPa; drained Poisson's ratio, 0.17; undrained Poisson's ratio, 0.34; and pore pressure buildup coefficient, 0.75 at 10 MPa effective stress.