AAPG Bulletin, V. 86, No. 7 (July 2002), P. 1305-1328.

Copyright ©2002. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

Carboniferous coals of the Zonguldak basin (northwest Turkey): Implications for coalbed methane potential

M. Namik Yalçin,¹ Sedat Inan,² Gülbin Gürdal,³ Ulrich Mann,⁴ Rainer G. Schaefer⁵

¹Istanbul University, Department of Geological Engineering, Avcilar-Istanbul, 34850, Turkey; email: [email protected]
²TÜBITAK Marmara Research Center, Earth and Marine Sciences Research Institute, Gebze-Kocaeli, 41470, Turkey; email: [email protected]
³TÜBITAK Marmara Research Center, Earth and Marine Sciences Research Institute, Gebze-Kocaeli, 41470, Turkey; email: [email protected]
⁴Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institut für Erdöl und Organische Geochemie (ICG-4), D-52425, Jülich, Germany; email: u.mann@fz_juelich.de
⁵Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institut für Erdöl und Organische Geochemie (ICG-4), D-52425, Jülich, Germany; email: r.g.schaefer@fz_juelich.de

AUTHORS

M. Namik Yalçin received an M.S. degree in 1972 and a Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.) in 1977 from the University of Istanbul. He worked as an assistant professor at the University of Istanbul between 1977 and 1981. After a postdoctoral Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the Institute of Petroleum and Organic Geochemistry, Kernforschungsanlage (KFA)-Jülich from 1981 to 1982, he joined the Integrated Exploration Systems (IES) GmbH in Germany. In 1985 he was promoted to technical manager. He headed the Earth Sciences Research Institute of the Marmara Research Center of the Technical and Scientific Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) between 1989 and 2000. Since 1993, he has been a professor at the University of Istanbul, in the Department of Geological Engineering. Yalçin was awarded the TÜBITAK Award in Earth Sciences in 1984, the Success Award of the Marmara Research Center in 1995, and the Distinguished Service Award of the European Association of Organic Geochemists in 1999. His scientific interests include the geology and geochemistry of fossil fuels, quantitative basin analysis, basin modeling, and coalbed methane.

Sedat Inan is a staff research scientist with the Earth Sciences Research Institute of the Marmara Research Center (MRC) of the Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council (TÜBITAK). He received his B.Sc. degree in geology (hons.) from Istanbul Technical University in 1986, his M.Sc. degree in geology and geophysics from the University of New Orleans in 1989, and his Ph.D. in geosciences (petroleum geology) from Pennsylvania State University in 1993. His scientific interests include thermal maturation; petroleum generation and migration; coalbed gas; basin analysis, including basin modeling; and neotectonics.

Gülbin Gürdal is a staff research scientist with the Marmara Research Center (MRC) of the Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council (TÜBITAK). She received her B.Sc. degree in geology in 1986, her M.Sc. degree in geology in 1990, and her Ph.D. in organic petrology in 1998, all from Istanbul Technical University. Her scientific interests include coal petrography and petrophysics.

Ulrich Mann attained a diploma degree in mineralogy and a Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.) from Heidelberg University, Germany, in 1977 and 1980. In 1980, he joined the Institute for Petroleum and Organic Geochemistry at the Research Center Jülich, where he worked with Dietrich H. Welte on the interfaces between organic geochemistry, sedimentology, and petrophysics. He has 20 years experience as coordinator of petroleum geochemistry analytical services. He is head of the organic geochemistry group, lecturer at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, author of more than 100 petroleum geochemistry reports for oil companies worldwide, and author of more than 50 articles on source rock properties and petroleum migration. His current research interests are the stability and long-term dynamics of paleoecosystems with emphasis on the coupling of geodynamics and biodynamics.

Rainer Schaefer is a staff research scientist with the Institute of Petroleum and Organic Geochemistry at the Research Center (formerly KFA) Jülich, Germany. He obtained his first academic degree in chemistry (Diplom-Chemiker) in 1967 at Freie Universito/oot, Berlin, and, in 1970, he received his doctoral degree after conducting a dissertation in chemistry on heterogeneous catalysis at Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany. Since joining the Research Center Jülich in 1975, he has published numerous articles on organic and petroleum geochemistry topics. His current research interests include the reaction kinetics of petroleum generation and the geochemistry of low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wholeheartedly thank Turkish Hardcoal Enterprises (TTK) and the Directorate of the Western Black Sea Region of the General Directorate of the Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA) for logistics and technical support and their continued interest in our studies. We thank Cemil Seyis and Suna Çetin (TÜBITAK) for their help in drafting the figures and Hakan Hosgörmez (Istanbul University) for technical support. Brian Horsfield and Hans J. Schenk, as well as Jürgen Höltkemeier and Frank Leistner (Forschungszentrum Jülich), are thanked for their support with analytical work, such as low-molecular-weight hydrocarbon gas chromatography, pyrolysis-gas chromatography, and kinetic analyses. This work was partly supported by the Istanbul University Research Fund (Project Ö-586/020399), and Turkish-German cooperation was made possible by Forschungszentrum Jülich (ÖA/INT) and TÜBITAK-Ankara under the project Hydrocarbons in Sediments. We thank F. Mango, R. Flores, and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful reviews, constructive criticism, and comments, which greatly improved the manuscript.

An extended version of Table 1 is accessible to AAPG members in an electronic version available on the AAPG Web site as Datashare 14 at <www.aapg.org/datashare/index.html>.

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