Abstract
The term oil shale is a misnomer and little agreement nas been possible, in the past, as to a definition of oil shale or the nature and origin of the organic matter. Many definitions of oil shale have been published but few address the fundamental feature of oil shales which is the nature and abundance of organic matter. The volume of oil produced during pyrolysis and the chemical composition and subsequent physical properties of the derived oil, are dependent on the nature and abundance of organic matter. It should be noted rocks best termed oil shale, coal, limestone and claystone may all occur in the same sequence. With respect to organic matter, all are end members of transitions, for example, oil shale->limestone and oil shale->claystone. This means that the percentage of organic matter ranges from a minimum (= 0 or at the most <<1%) in claystone and limestone to a maximum in oil shale or coal.
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Hutton, A.C. (1995). Organic Petrography of Oil Shales. In: Snape, C. (eds) Composition, Geochemistry and Conversion of Oil Shales. NATO ASI Series, vol 455. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0317-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0317-6_2
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