Geoecological and lithogenetic conditions creating petroleum products in the caspian sea
The article discusses the lithogenetic conditions under which the Caspian Sea’s layers of sedimentary rock evolved into oil and gas-generative sources. The document adds that in recent years the Sea has become a rich potential source of such natural resources as gas, oil and gas condensates. In the critique’s view, the most significant geo-ecological conditions causing the Caspian to create these raw materials have included its concentration of scattered organic substance destined for evolutionary transformation into petroleum-based products. Researchers into lithogenesis have sought to predict the intensity of productive breeds of petro-saturation by examining the allocation of petro-generating deposits in a selected portion of the Caspian Sea. Other deposits of note include those in the Aptsky sand layer and the upper Neokomski Circle. The former contains migratory gas condensates, while the Neokomski encompasses petro-saturated breeds with a vast extent of epigenetic saturation. For their part, Jurassic breeds contain oil pools featuring high migratory saturation and a low degree of syngenetic hydrocarbons. Triassic breeds, by contrast, contain both oil and gas-oil deposits, while Paleozoic deposits contain syngenetic oil pools of petroleum mother loads having high maintenance for easy fractionation. Subsequently, the study says that geo-ecological researchers have assessed organic substances found among sea sedimentary breeds – in different stages of their catagenetic (cracking) process – confirming that the Jurassic, Triassic and Lower Cretaceous deposits have little potential of containing mother loads (of oil and gas). A different conclusion was reached for Mesozoic deposits of hydrocarbons, which exhibit more rigid thermobaric (hydrothermal) conditions, and, consequently, are more suitable for generating petroleum-based resources. These deposits, which appear catagenetic, have a temperature of more than 200° C, while the mezogenetic deposits have a temperature of less than 100° C. In conclusion, the research paper postulates that the mezogenetic congestions were formed following the migration of fluids from thermobaric zones. The fluids apparently underwent catagenesis and were transformed into petroleum-bearing mother loads in Paleozoic complexes.