ABSTRACT: Geochemical Characteristics of Oils from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Taiwan

Oung Jung-Nan, Paul Richard Philp

Oils from a number of convergent margin settings of the Pacific and Philippine plates have been characterized by geochemical techniques including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and carbon isotopic analysis. The oils, collected from New Zealand, New Guinea, and Taiwan, are described in terms of their biomarker compositions, and these distributions are used to evaluate the nature of the source material responsible for the oils. For the most part, these oils are of Tertiary age and the source materials were derived predominantly from higher plants. We describe the effects of a convergent margin on the relative maturity of the oils as reflected by their biomarker distributions. In other words, do any of the oils from these regions have anomalous maturity values that can be attributed to additional heating resulting from plate movement in the area. The results will also be compared with oils from similar source materials but not in convergent margin settings (for example, the Gippsland basin, Australia) to further evaluate the effects of the convergent margin setting on the biomarker distributions.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990