Isotopic evidence for quasi-equilibrium chemistry in thermally mature natural gases.

ABSTRACT: Natural gas is a key energy resource, and understanding how it forms is important for predicting where it forms in economically important volumes. However, the origin of dry thermogenic natural gas is one of the most controversial topics in petroleum geochemistry, with several differing hypotheses proposed, including kinetic processes (such as thermal cleavage, phase partitioning during migration, and demethylation of aromatic rings) and equilibrium processes (such as transition metal catalysis). The dominant paradigm is that it is a product of kinetically controlled cracking of long-chain hydrocarbons. Here we show that C2+ n-alkane gases (ethane, propane, butane, and pentane) are initially produced by irreversible cracking chemistry, but, as thermal maturity increases, the isotopic distr

SUBMITTER: Thiagarajan N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7049135 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature