25th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry IMOG 2011

P-273
Preservation of β-carotane in sediments from the Lopare basin,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Aleksandra Ńajnoviš 1 , Nenad Grba 2 , Ksenija Stojanoviš 3 , Branimir Jovanţiševiš 3 , Biljana
Dojţinoviš 1
1 Center of Chemistry, IChTM, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia, 2 Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences,
11000 Belgrade, Serbia, 3 University of Belgrade, Faculty of Chemistry, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
(corresponding author:sajnovica@chem.bg.ac.rs)
β-Carotane and other diagenetic products of βcarotene
are specific indicators of anoxic lacustrine
environments. Preliminary organic geochemical
studies of sediments of Lopare basin show that they
contain a moderate amount of immature algal organic
matter (OM) deposited in reducing to anoxic
conditions with high salinity. The investigation was
performed on 27 sedimentary rocks with depth of 344
m. The majority of samples contain β-carotane in
relatively high quantities, and in some, it is the most
abundant compound in the total distribution of
hydrocarbons. Therefore, the Lopare basin is chosen
for study and determination the conditions, which are
favorable to β-carotane precursors and/or
preservation of its hydrocarbon skeleton. The relative
content of β-carotane was correlated with the specific
organic geochemical parameters and contents of
macro-, microelements and rare earth elements.
After the isolation of soluble organic matter using
column chromatography, saturated and aromatic
hydrocarbons were analyzed by gas chromatographymass
spectrometry (GC-MS). The content of macro-,
microelements and rare earth elements (a total of 47
elements) were determined by means of ICP-OES
spectrophotometer.
The relative content of β-carotane in the total
distribution of hydrocarbons is up to 25%. As the OM
is immature; C31(S)/C31(S+R)