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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Journal of Petroleum Geology

Abstract

Journal of Petroleum Geology, Vol.8, No.2, pp. 229-232, 1985

©Copyright 2000 Scientific Press, Ltd.

GEOLOGIC TIME AS A PARAMETER IN ORGANIC METAMORPHISM AND VITRINITE REFLECTANCE AS AN ABSOLUTE PALEOGEOTHERMOMETER: DISCUSSION

James J. Kohsmann +

+ Bellaire Research Laboratories, Texaco USA, PO Box 425, Bellaire, TX. 77405, USA.


Experience in industrial applications suggests that hydrocarbon maturation can be modelled using first-order reaction kinetics. Recently, however, Price (1983) concluded that first-order reactions were not of great importance in the thermal breakdown of kerogens, and that most maturation is strongly dependent only on the maximum temperature attained, not on the length of heating time. The conclusion regarding the inapplicability of first-order reaction theory to hydrocarbon maturation was based in part on the non-linearity of log-linear plots of the percent of remaining kerogen versus time. The conclusion concerning the strong temperature- and weak time-dependence of kerogen decomposition was based in part on the observation that constant-temperature pyrolysis data often show negligible reactions for times on the order of hundreds of hours. It can be shown that the observations upon which these conclusions are, in part, based are compatible with first-order reaction theory.

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