25th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry IMOG 2011

P-044
Geochemical characteristics of organic matter in the
Kupferschiefer strata in the Fore-Sudetic Monocline, SW Poland
Paweł Kosakowski, Adam Kowalski
AGH-University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland (corresponding author:kosak@agh.edu.pl)
The Polish Permian Basin (PPB) is part of the great
Permian sedimentary basin in Europe extending from
England through Holland, Germany, Denmark, Poland
up to Lithuania and western Belarus. The SW part of
this basin forms the Fore-Sudetic Monocline.
The Kupferschiefer strata are less than one metre
thick and consist of rich organic laminated black
mudstones, marls and carbonates, deposited in
anoxic or suboxic shallow shelf conditions. The
Kupferschiefer shales were deposited following a
rapid marine transgression over an area that had
been subject to a very long period of arid to semi-arid
conditions. A characteristic feature is the presence of
large amounts ore of metals. The ores in such regions
contain sulfides of Cu, Pb, and Zn and may be
enriched in a variety of other elements.
Pyrolysis assay was done with a Delsi Model II
Rock-Eval® instrument. The saturated and aromatics
hydrocarbons extracted and separated from bitumens
separately underwent gas chromatography analysis
on Agilent Technologies type 7890A apparatus,
coupled with mass spectrometer typ 5975C Network.
As an internal standard β-Cholan and o-Terphenyl
were used for saturated fraction and aromatics
fraction, respectively. The analysis of metals was
made by ICP-MS method on samples treated with
HClO4-HNO3-HCl-HF at 200°C with a Perkin Elmer
SCIEX ELAN 6000 spectrometer at ACTLABS
Laboratories Ltd., Canada.
The organic carbon (TOC) contents in the
Kupferschiefer marine bituminous shales of Upper
Permian (Zechstein) age vary from 0.01 up to 16 wt.%
[1]. As pointed out by Bechtel and Puttmann [2] the
organic carbon content generally decreases from the
bottom to the top of the Kupferschiefer profiles. Data
from Rock-Eval pyrolysis and biomarkers analyses
show the presence of sapropelic Type-II kerogen at a
maturity level corresponding to the initial stage of lowtemperature
thermogenic processes. The interesting
information can be found in the distribution of aliphatic
hydrocarbons. The even-carbon unsaturated
hydrocarbons (Fig. 1 - black triangles) are very
intense in the samples. Their maximum intensity can
be observed for 20-22 carbon atom. The presence of
such compounds can be indicative of relatively low
maturity level of the organic matter. However, the
analyses of the studied aromatic fraction revealed that
its maturity level was 0.6 - 0.7 %Ro. This can prove
that organic matter disposed in the Kupferschiefer
shale could initiate transformation of kerogen to liquid
hydrocarbons. As a result of this process, the part of
fatty acids in esters coming from Eubacteria and
Eukarya was reduced to unsaturated hydrocarbons.
Intensity
Intensity Intensity
C C
15
16
Nor
C 17
C 18
Ph
Pr
C19 C 20
C21
10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00 90.00
C 22
Stęszew-9/2950,4m
C 25
C24
C23 Retention time (min.)
C27 C29 C26 C28 C30
C 31C32
C 33C34
Kaleje-2/3095,6m
Antonin-17/1740,6m
Fig. 1. The distribution of the n-alkanes and
izoprenoids (m/z 71)
The research was undertaken as research project
of Polish Ministry of Science and High Education Nos
18.18.140.624 and 18.18.140.881. This study was
financed from the scientific fund of 2010-2012.
References
[1] Sawłowicz, Z, Gize, A. P., Rospondek, M., 2000.
Kluwer Academic Publ. Dordrecht, 220-242
[2] Bechtel and Puttmann 1997. Palaeogeogr.,
Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol., 136, 331-358.
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