Discussion on Composition Characteristics and Genesis of High Abundance Tricyclic Terpanes in Coal-Measure Source Rocks
Received date: 2025-02-22
Revised date: 2025-03-25
Online published: 2025-05-07
Supported by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China(42072165)
The relative abundance of tricyclic terpanes is an important indicator of organic matter origin, depositional environment, and thermal evolution. While traditional coal-measure source rocks typically exhibit low tricyclic terpane contents, anomalously high abundances (relative to hopanes) have been observed in source rocks from the Ordos and Tarim Basins. Therefore, detailed investigations into their distribution patterns, compositional characteristics, and formation mechanisms are of substantial significance. This study employed conventional geochemical analysis methods and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to systematically characterize the molecular geochemical features of 30 coal-measure source rock samples from the study area. The results show that tricyclic terpanes in coal-measure source rocks exhibit two distinct abundance patterns: low abundance (∑TT/C30H<2) and high abundance (∑TT/C30H>2). The low-abundance tricyclic terpane samples exhibit a decreasing C19-21TT distribution, formed in freshwater, oxidizing environments, with hydrocarbon-generating parent material primarily derived from higher plants under low thermal maturity conditions. The high-abundance tricyclic terpane samples showed distribution patterns with C23TT or C21TT as the dominant peak, formed in saline, sulfur-rich depositional environments. The hydrocarbon-generating parent material was mainly derived from bacteria and lower aquatic organisms, reaching mature to highly mature thermal evolution stages. Correlation analysis of maturity, depositional environment, and parent material input parameters with ∑TT/C30H values revealed that depositional environment and source material characteristics had a stronger correlation with tricyclic terpane abundance than thermal maturity. The findings suggest that brackish, high-sulfur coal-forming environments and increased contributions of secondary products from microbial transformation of higher plants are the primary controlling factors for high tricyclic terpane abundance in coal-measure source rock extracts, whereas thermal maturity is a secondary factor. The molecular compositions and formation mechanisms of high-abundance tricyclic terpanes provide crucial geochemical evidence for identifying coal-forming environments, characterizing hydrocarbon-generating organic matter, and evaluating thermal maturity, thereby offering theoretical and practical guidance for coal-measure hydrocarbon exploration.
Key words: Tricyclic terpanes; Hopane; Coal-measure source rock; Ordos Basin; Kuqa Depression.
Liuqing XIA , Min ZHANG , Yuxiang WU . Discussion on Composition Characteristics and Genesis of High Abundance Tricyclic Terpanes in Coal-Measure Source Rocks[J]. Advances in Earth Science, 2025 , 40(4) : 424 -438 . DOI: 10.11867/j.issn.1001-8166.2025.029
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