Petroleum Potential of the Cenomanian/Turonian Boundary Black Shales in the Lower and Middle Antalya Nappes, Western Taurus Region of Turkey

Cenomanian/Turonian boundary black shales in the western Taurus region are found in the Dereköy and Ballik formations of Lower and Middle Antalya Nappes. Petroleum source rock characteristics and richness of these shales have been examined by analytical techniques that included TOC and Rock-Eval analyses. Generation capacities and amount of hydrocarbons generated were evaluated by mass balance calculations. The analytical results point to the presence of marine Type II kerogen having high measured total organic carbon content (TOC) (up to 42.19 wt%) and HI values as high as 677 mg HC/g TOC. Mass balance assessments show that the fractional conversion (f) of the petroleum generation process and quantity of hydrocarbons expelled (S _{1 exp} ) from the source rock interval are fairly low. These results are interpreted as being due to immature and early mature levels of the source rock samples to generate hydrocarbons in sufficient amounts.

Keywords:

• Cenomanian/Turonian black shales
• source rock
• mass balance
• generation
• expulsion

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Research Foundation of Hacettepe University (Project No: 00 01 602 007) and Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) for the support in field study and analyzing the data. The authors also gratefully acknowledge Nehir Varol (Hacettepe University) and Ozgul Sen (Hacettepe University) for their help in preparing this article.