Analysis of Regional Distribution of Vanadium in Petroleum

摘要

It has been suggested that the regional distribution of vanadium in crude oil may provide information on the origin of natural gas and petroleum deposits on earth. If there are regional patterns in the concentration which are large in scale and unrelated to sedimentary or tectonic environments, this may support the theory that economically important quantities of abiogenic hydrocarbons are migrating from deep in the earth. The report documents all of the vanadium data found in the open literature and examines the local and regional variations in concentration. It is shown that much of the variability is a consequence of the fact that vanadium is concentrated in the heavy fractions of oils and in heavier oils. On a local scale, variations in vanadium can be further related to sedimentary, structural, or migrational phenomena. On a regional scale it is clear that there are large regions which are characterized by high or low vanadium concentrations. While there are not enough data available to be definitive, it does not appear that these regions transcend traditional depositional or tectonic environments.