Carbon and hydrogen isotopes of neo-pentane for biodegraded natural gas correlation

Christopher J. Boreham*, Dianne S. Edwards, Janet M. Hope, Junhong Chen, Ziqing Hong

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    23 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In severely biodegraded gases, every common C1-C5 hydrocarbon (methane, ethane, propane, iso-butane, n-butane, iso-pentane, n-pentane) and CO2 have been altered, negating the power of carbon and hydrogen isotopic compositions as correlation tools. Here, we show that neo-pentane (2,2-dimethylpropane) is recalcitrant, having an extreme resistance to biodegradation. In a gas biodegradation series with a common source from the Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia, the carbon and hydrogen isotopic compositions of neo-pentane provide the sole means by which a severely biodegraded gas can be correlated with a moderately biodegraded gas and a non-biodegraded gas. As such, the sterically hindered structure involving 2,2-dimethyl hydrocarbons can be exploited in gas (and oil) correlation studies. Crown

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1483-1486
    Number of pages4
    JournalOrganic Geochemistry
    Volume39
    Issue number10
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Oct 2008

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