Molecular parameter data for oil–oil and oil–source rock correlations

Exploring for Oil and Gas Traps
Series	Treatise in Petroleum Geology
Part	Critical elements of the petroleum system
Chapter	Oil–oil and oil–source rock correlations
Author	Douglas W. Waples, Joseph A. Curiale
Link	Web page
Store	AAPG Store

Molecular parameters are based on the presence or on the relative or absolute abundance of specific molecules in an oil or a source rock extract.

Molecular parameters are the most powerful of all correlation tools because of the precision of the information they convey and the large amount of data that can be obtained. In addition to correlating an oil directly to another oil or to a source rock extract, certain molecular parameters can be used to estimate ages of oils. This capability is valuable in initiating the search for a source rock to correlate with a particular oil.

Geochemical techniques

Data about molecular parameters are obtained by the following geochemical techniques:

• Gas chromatography (GC)
• Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS)
• Pyrolysis–Gas chromatography (Py–GC)
• High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

GC/MS is the most important technique because it provides abundant, highly specific data.

See also

• Data obtained by gas chromatography
• How is GC/MS done?
• Environments indicated by specific compounds
• Examples of correlations using GC/MS
• Limitations of GC/MS
• Pyrolysis-gas chromatography
• High-performance liquid chromatography

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