Abstract
One hundred and sixty oils from producing wells and drill-stem tests in the United States and around the world have been analyzed for the stable carbon isotope composition of the heavy (C15+) saturated and aromatic fractions. Extreme reproducibility in the separation techniques and in the isotope preparation and measurement has allowed the plotting of the aromatic isotope composition versus that of the saturated composition with a very high degree of confidence. It appears that there is a linear relation between the isotopic composition of the aromatic and saturated fractions of oils of marine origin. A parallel relation, but with a more positive y intercept, seems to hold for oils of terrigenous origin. Oils which have undergone bacterial degradation show a ifferent linear relation which can be extrapolated to the composition of the original non-degraded oil. End_of_Article - Last_Page 995------------
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