Hydrocarbon generation potentiality of tertiary shales from Makum basin, Assam, India

Abstract

To assess the potentiality of generating hydrocarbon of tertiary shale bearing sequences through geochemical and palynofacies assemblages authors have collected six samples from Makum basin of Northeast India. The Rock Eval pyrolysis and TOC analyses (geochemical parameter) shows that samples having good to excellent potentiality to generate hydrocarbon. Maturity index (Romv and Tmax) indicates that the organic matters are found to be in the range of marginal oil window and are considered as immature nature with a trends towards early maturity. Palynofacies analysis implies that the samples under investigation are marked dominance of phytoclasts, succeeded by amorphous and palynomorphs group of organic matter. Therefore, from the geochemical and palynofacies investigation it has been pointed out that the studied samples are marked by mixed organic matter (type II+III kerogen) source having capability to produce mixed hydrocarbon (gas and oil) on maturation.