Hydrothermal Petroleum

Abstract

Hydrothermal petroleum formation is rapid and efficient in systems associated with tectonic spreading centers and high fluid transport. In these systems the conditions driving chemical reactions are high temperatures (~60 to >400 °C) and confining pressures (>150 bar) in an aqueous open flow medium. Organic matter alteration by reductive reactions to petroleum hydrocarbons proceeds generally from immature organic matter (also from entrained viable biota) instantaneously or over a brief geological time span (decades to millennia). These conditions are conducive to organic chemistry which yields concurrent products primarily from reduction (due to mineral buffering), to a lesser extent from oxidation (high thermal stress), and traces from synthesis reactions.