An assessment of paleodepositional environment and maturity of organic matter in sediments of the Setap Shale and Belait formations in West Sabah, East Malaysia by organic geochemical methods

Abstract

The black shale samples collected from two Neogene formations in the Klias Peninsula area, West Sabah, have been assessed and characterized in details by gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and a variety of organic geochemical parameters. The aims of this study are to describe the characteristics of organic matter of these sediments in terms of source/type of the organic matter, assess its thermal maturity and paleoenvironment of deposition, based primarily on biomarker distributions. The results of both formations do not reveal significant differences within the rock extracts. The gas chromatograms of the saturated hydrocarbon fractions of the Setap Shale and the Belait formations displayed monomodal n-alkane distributions and nearly identical regular sterane compositions with a predominance of C27 regular steranes. These are consistent with open marine depositional environments dominated by marine biological matter. Another related feature of these rock extracts is the presence of a high relative abundance of gammacerane, indicating anoxic marine hypersaline source depositional environment. The relatively high abundance of common land plant-derived biomarkers, such as bicadinanes and oleananes, is a clear indication of a major terrigenous input to the source of the extractable organic matter. The predominance of oleanane biomarkers in both formations is indicative of angiospermis input and Tertiary source rocks. The high C29/C30 hopane ratios, moderate development of C33–C35 hopanes, high abundance of tricyclic terpanes and a slight predominance of C27 regular sterane over C28 and C29 steranes are characteristic features tending to suggest a significant marine influence on these source rocks, thereby suggesting a mixed source input. The 22S/(22S+22R)C32 hopane ratio has reached equilibrium, and this is supported by the high maturity level as indicated by the 22S/22SC31–33 extended hopane ratios and 20S/(20S+20R)C29 regular steranes ratios.