The Ruhr sandstone is assigned to the Upper Carboniferous and is part of the Ruhr cyclothem located in North Rhine-Westphalia, which consists of clays, siltstones, mudstones, sandstones, and interbedded coal seams. The sediment was chemically and mechanically compacted, folded, and faulted during the Hercynian orogeny. The studied microstructure of the Ruhr sandstone indicates depths of up to 6000 m and reconstructed, possible temperatures of over 120 ºC. This results in a complex mineralogical structure compared to other sandstones such as the Berea sandstone or the Fontainbleau sandstone. As part of the Balcewicz et al. (2021) publication, we made a first attempt to study the Ruhr Sandstone using Digital Rock Physics (DRP).

This dataset contains the underlying Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images used in Balcewicz et al. (2021). The images were obtained on two thin sections of the Ruhr sandstone (RSST_X_02_25 & RSST_X_02_75).