Research paper
Petrographic classification of oil shales

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Abstract

Oil shales are a diverse group of rocks that contain mineral matter and organic matter. The organic matter is derived from terrestrial, lacustrine and marine organisms. The maceral nomeclature system of the International Committee for Coal Petrology, used widely in coal petrography and petroleum source-rock studies, is suitable for describing the organic matter in oil shales provided the terminology for organic matter derived from algal precursors is divided into two submacerals — telalginite and lamalginite. Macerals of the liptinite group, including alginite, are volumetrically important constituents of oil shales and are the major source of the shale oil that is formed during pyrolysis. Liptinite is easily characterized and quantified using fluorescence mode microscopy and thus the type and abundance of liptinite can be used as a basis for a petrographic classification of oil shales.

Oil shales are grouped, using the environmental of deposition as the discriminatory criterion, into the three primary divisions of terrestrial, lacustrine and marine oil shales. Type and abundance of liptinite is then used to subdivide these three groups into cannel coal, torbanite, lamosite (further subdivided into Rundle-type lamosite and Green River-type lamosite), marinite, tasmanite and kuckersite.

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