Catagenesis (geology) - Future Work

Future Work

A great deal of future research is required to isolate the parameters are most significant for inducing the Catagenetic process. Future work in the field will involve the following:

• Establishing the precise relationship between burial time and hydrocarbon cracking.
• Determining how hydrogen from water is ultimately incorporated in kerogen.
• Establishing the effect of regional shearing.
• Determining how static fluid pressure affects hydrocarbon generation. Some experiments have demonstrated that static fluid pressure may explain the presence of hydrocarbon concentrations at depths where their composition would not otherwise be expected.
• Many measurements of hydrocarbon content in sample rocks have been done at atmospheric pressure. This ignores the loss of large amounts of hydrocarbons during depressurization. Rock samples at atmospheric pressure have been measured at 0.11–2.13 percent of samples at formation pressure. Observations at well sites include fizzing of rock chips and oil films covering drilling mud pits.
• Types of organic matter can not be ignored. Different types of organic matter have different chemical bonds, bond strength patterns, and thus different activation energies.
• C₁₅+ hydrocarbons are stable at much higher temperatures than predicted by first-order reaction kinetics.*

For example, while it was once assumed that catagenetic processes were first-order reactions, some research has shown that this may not be the case.