The effects of biodegradation on the compositions of aromatic hydrocarbons and maturity indicators in biodegraded oils from Liaohe Basin

By the aid of GC-MS technique, a series of sequentially biodegraded oils from Liaohe Basin have been analyzed. The results show that the concentrations and relative compositions of various aromatic compounds in the biodegraded crude oils will change with increasing biodegradation degree. The concentrations of alkyl naphthalenes, alkyl phenanthrenes, alkyl dibenzothiophene are decreased, and the concentration of triaromatic steroids will increase with increasing biodegradation degree in biodegraded oils. Those phenomena indicate that various aromatic compounds are more easily biodegraded by bacteria like other kinds of hydrocarbons such as alkanes, but different series of aromatic compounds have a varied ability to resistant to biodegradation. The ratios of dibenzothiophene to phenenthrene (DBTH/P) and methyl dibenzothiophene to methyl phenanthrene (MDBTH/MP) are related to the features of depositional environment for source rocks such as redox and ancient salinity. However, in biodegraded oils, the two ratios increase quickly with the increase of the biodegradation degree, indicating that they have lost their geochemical significance. In this case, they could not be used to evaluate the features of depositional environment. Methyl phenanthrene index, methyl phenanthrene ratio and methyl dibenzoyhiophene ratio are useful aromatic maturity indicators for the crude oils and the source rocks without vitrinite. But for biodegraded oils, those aromatic maturity indicators will be affected by biodegradation and decrease with the increase of the biodegradation degree. Therefore, those aromatic molecular maturity indicators could not be used for biodegraded oils.