Characteristic features of the hydrocarbon composition of Spiridonovskoe (Tatarstan) and Pitch Lake (Trinidad and Tobago) asphaltites

Abstract

A comparative study of the composition of natural asphaltites from surface deposits of oil-and-gas territories of the republics of Tatarstan and Trinidad and Tobago has been performed. Distinctive features of their component, structural-group, and hydrocarbon compositions have been revealed, as well as the fractional and structural-group composition of asphaltenes. It has been shown that the interlayer space in asphaltenes (dispersed phase) contains part of the dispersion medium, the composition of which stores information about the origin of asphaltites due to upward streams of deep waxy oil that has undergone both hydrothermal and bacterial alteration during migration and subsequent transformations.