| Abstract: | Young kerogens isolated from seven freshwater lakes, six river mouths and four marine surface sediments were subjected to pyrolysis in vacuo. Their pyrolysates were trapped and separated subsequently for determination of hydrocarbons, fatty acids and alcohols. The abundances, carbon number distributions of long (C12) polymethylene chain lipid compounds and relative abundances of pristenes are proposed as possible indices applicable to discrimination between young kerogens from freshwater lacustrine and marine sediments. Some oil-shale kerogens of Eocene and Permian age were pyrolyzed in the same way, where the chain-length distributions of the pyrolysis products showed similar trends as those observed for the pyrolysis of young kerogens. |
