Biological markers in sediments and petroleum

Abstract

This book is a compendium of papers presented at the American Chemical Society meetings held in Dallas, Texas between April 9-14, 1989. The intent of this book is to identify biochemical and diagenetic markers, which will improve the capability to reconstruct paleodepositional settings. The paradigm being used here is that studies of biomarkers and immature recent sediments can be compared with mature aging sediments to provide a means to establish the characterization of paleoenvironments. The book traces recent advances and continued progress in the study of biomarker organic geochemistry. The book contains some nineteen papers whose topics include hopanoids, procaryotic, tritaritpenoids, and the precursors of ubiquitous molecular fossils to biomarker distributions in crude oils, hydrothermal systems, hydrocarbon biological markers in the Carboniferous coals, oil to source rock correlation, source correlation maturities, assessment of source rocks, and rocks in the central Adriatic Basin in Italy and Yugoslavia. The papers in this volume are short and to the point and are directed at biomarker history. Illustrations are relatively clear and members of the oil industry are definitely the intended audience. There is an emphasis on the use of biomarkers for oil correlation, age dating, and paleoenvironmental interpretation.