Journal of Petroleum Geology, Vol.17,
No.1, pp. 5-38, 1994
©Copyright 2000 Scientific Press,
Ltd.
BASIN RICHNESS AND SOURCE ROCK
DISRUPTION-
A FUNDAMENTALRELATIONSHIP?
L. C. Price*
* USGS, Denver Federal Centre,
Denver, CO. 80225. USA.
Abstract
Primary petroleum migration (expulsion from
source rocks) remains the least understood parameter controlling
the genesis of oil deposits. In spite of this lack of
understanding, many petroleum geochemists (including this Author)
have previously considered expulsion from organic-rich, mature
source rocks to be very efficient. This viewpoint results from
Rock-Eval analyses of organic-rich source rocks, analyses which
demonstrate a loss of hydrocarbon (HC) generation capacity, by
significant reduction in Rock-Eval hydrogen indices, as such
rocks are progressively buried in sedimentary basins. However,
this progressive loss of HC generation capacity is not matched by
numerically-equivalent increases either in Soxhlet-extractable
HCs or the Rock-Eval S1 pyrolysis peak. Thus, we conclude that almost all
generated HCs have migrated from the source rocks.
