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Organic geochemistry characteristics of Jurassic black shales from the Amdo area, northern Tibet, China

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Abstract

The Jurassic black shales of the Qiangtang Basin, northern Tibet are known to be amongst the most important source rocks. To date, there is no detailed study on the organic geochemistry of the Bathonian/Callovian coccolith-bearing sediments and their source-rock characteristics. Here, we focus on the black limestones, marls, and shales at the Amdo 114 station section using Rock–Eval pyrolysis and biomarkers for sources, types, and thermal maturity of organic matter and the reconstructed depositional environment. All samples are characterized by (1) relatively high TOC values (0.20–2.56 wt%) and relatively low Tmax values between 428 and 452 °C; (2) short-chain n-alkanes with a maximum at C14 to C18 and Pr/Ph > 1; (3) 31–35 homohopanes and gammacerane with lower abundance; and (4) C27–C28–C29 regular steranes with C29 being slightly dominant. The organic matter is Type II and thus dominantly derived from phytoplankton, especially algae. Thermal maturity indicators include the Ts/(Ts + Tm), C31 22S/(22S + 2R), C29 ααα20S/(20S + 0R), C29 ββ/(ββ + αα) and C27 Dia/(Dia + Reg), which are regarded as immature to very early mature. Additionally, the high Pr/Ph, Pr/nC17, and Ph/nC18 ratios, Pr/Ph vs Gammacerane index suggest that these black shales were deposited in unstratified marine waters of normal salinity under dysoxic to weakly reduced conditions.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Minquan Xia, Maocheng Wang for their fieldwork. Many thanks are also given to Mrs. Sun Weiling for the Organic geochemistry experiments at the National Research Center of Geoanalysis (Beijing, China). This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 41572095, 42172121, 41102066, and 41572089) and the Opening Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University (China) (Grant No. MGK1703). Hugh Jenkyns (University of Oxford, UK) helped with the English language and style. We are grateful to Editor Dr. Binbin Wang and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Ore Deposit Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 99 West Lincheng Road, Guiyang, 550081, China

    Guiwen Xu & Weiguang Zhu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Guiwen Xu

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, China

    Guiwen Xu, Lan Chen, Xuejuan Da & Zhangxiong Zhu

  4. Institute of Sedimentary Geology, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, 610059, China

    Haisheng Yi

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  1. Guiwen Xu
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Correspondence to Lan Chen.

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Xu, G., Chen, L., Zhu, W. et al. Organic geochemistry characteristics of Jurassic black shales from the Amdo area, northern Tibet, China. Acta Geochim 41, 393–405 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11631-022-00537-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11631-022-00537-y

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