Molecular compositions of weathered petroleum and comparison with its possible source

Abstract

Two surface outcrop samples and three drill core samples of oil-impregnated sandstone from the P.R. Spring Seep, Uinta Basin, Utah were analyzed. These oils exhibit in common the entire homologous series of tricyclic diterpane hydrocarbons, which have been previously described only in extracts from the Mahogany Ledge Member of the Green River Formation. Hopane and a series of degraded hopanes are also present in the oil samples, while steranes are conspicuously absent. Aliphatic alkanes are present only in the deepest core sample. The cycloalkanes are apparently not readily utilized by the petroleum oxidizing microbes, and therefore survive the weathering process. Tricyclic and tetracyclic alkylated diterpanes are unchanged, whereas the series from norhopane through tetrakisnorhopane may be interpreted as progressive bacterial degradation of the hopane molecule. The occurrence and distribution of tricyclic diterpanes, of tetracyclic diterpanes and pentacyclic triterpanes is similar to the stratigraphically nearby Mahogany Ledge Member, suggesting that the oil shales were the source rocks for the oil now exposed as the P.R. Spring Seep. The absence of steranes, which are abundant in the oil shales, is puzzling.