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Steroid hydrocarbons and the thermal history of sediments

Nature volume 295, pages 223–226 (1982)Cite this article

Abstract

Assessment of the extents to which certain organic chemical reactions have occurred in sedimentary rocks with increasing burial depth and the associated temperature rise, can distinguish differences in the extent of their thermal maturation1–10. Heating experiments with sediments have suggested that these different reaction types have different kinetic constants11. Therefore, a measurement of the extent to which one reaction type has occurred might be expected to correspond to different values of a measurement based on a different reaction type, depending, for example, on the average sedimentary heating rate (°C Myr−1)12 of the sample. We use here two reaction types to investigate this hypothesis: (1) configurational isomerization in steroid alkanes, represented by the conversion of the biologically inherited configuration, 5α(H), 14α(H), 17α(H), 20R, in a C29 sterane to an approximately equal mixture of itself and the corresponding 20S configuration formed in the sediment6,13; and (2) apparent aromatization of two C29 monoaromatic steroid hydrocarbons (Fig. 2) assumed to be isomeric at C-5 (refs 14–21), based on retention time comparisons with synthesized C-27 analogues, to a presumed product, the C28 triaromatic steroid hydrocarbon9,14. Comparison of the extents to which these two reactions have occurred in suites of sediment samples has allowed three basins [Pannonian Basin (Pliocene), Mahakam Delta (Miocene), Paris Basin (Toarcian)] with different thermal histories to be distinguished. Extension of the hypothesis to two other sedimentary sequences suggests a higher average heating rate for the Oligocene of the Zhanhua Depression (north-east China) than for the Cretaceous of the Wyoming Overthrust Belt.

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Author notes

  1. A. S. Mackenzie

    Present address: KFA-Jülich, ICH-5: Erdöl und Organische Geochemie, Postfach 1913, D-5170, Jülich, 1, FRG

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Organic Geochemistry Unit, University of Bristol, School of Chemistry, Cantock's Close, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK

    A. S. Mackenzie, N. A. Lamb & J. R. Maxwell

Authors
  1. A. S. Mackenzie
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  2. N. A. Lamb
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  3. J. R. Maxwell
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Mackenzie, A., Lamb, N. & Maxwell, J. Steroid hydrocarbons and the thermal history of sediments. Nature 295, 223–226 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/295223a0

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