OXYGENIC KEROGENIZATION OF ASPHALTENES FROM THE DEAD-SEA BASIN (ISRAEL)

A kerogen-bike material was generated during a laboratory heating expe riment with asphaltenes in the presence of O-2. The asphaltenes had be en extracted from a floating block of Dead Sea asphalt, and heated at 100 - 200 degrees C for 1-12 days. This oxygenic kerogenization reacti on follows first-order kinetics. The half-life (t(1/2)) of the asphalt enes (i.e. the time in which 50% of the asphaltenes had been converted to artificial kerogen) varied from 2,300 clays at 0 degrees C, to 2 d ays at 100 degrees C. Similar results were obtained with asphaltenes w hich had been extracted from a number of bitumen-bearing rocks in the Dead Sea area (from the Amiaz, Ein Boqeq, Nebi Mussa and Ef'e borehole s), and also from sandstones from the Heimar and IPRG boreholes which were impregnated with heavy or asphaltic crudes. These and other resul ts suggest that low-temperature (less than or equal to 100 degrees C) oxygen ic kerogenization of Dead Sea asphaltenes (with or without the mediation of meteoric waters) may be a pathway for the formation of ke rogen. Asphaltenes extracted from other bituminous rocks - the La Luna limestone (U. Cretaceous, Venezuela); the Serpiano marl (M. Triassic, Switzerland); the Messel shale (Tertiary, Germany); and the Aleksinac shale (Tertiary, Yugoslavia)- underwent laboratory kerogenization in a similar fashion to the Dead Sea materials. This suggests that oxygen ic kerogenization may be widespread in porous and fractured, bitumen-b earing rocks.