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Science 5 December 1986:
Vol. 234. no. 4781, pp. 1231 - 1234
DOI: 10.1126/science.234.4781.1231
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Articles

Petroleum Associated with Polymetallic Sulfide in Sediment from Gorda Ridge

KEITH A. KVENVOLDEN 1, JOHN B. RAPP 1, FRANCES D. HOSTETTLER 1, JANET L. MORTON 1, J. DAVID KING 2, and GEORGE E. CLAYPOOL 2

1 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025.
2 U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO 80225.

A sediment sample, impregnated with asphaltic petroleum and polymetallic sulfide, was dredged from the southern end of Gorda Ridge (the Escanaba Trough) off northern California, within the offshore Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States. The molecular distributions of hydrocarbons in this petroleum show that it was probably derived from terrestrial organic matter in turbidite sediment filling the Escanaba Trough. Hydrothermal activity at the Gorda Ridge spreading center provided the heat for petroleum formation and was the source of fluids for sulfide mineralization.

Submitted on July 7, 1986
Accepted on September 18, 1986


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Occurrences of hydrocarbons in and around igneous rocks.
S. R. Schutter (2003)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 214, 35-68
   Abstract »    PDF »
Organic matter alteration and fluid migration in hydrothermal systems.
B. R.T. Simoneit (1994)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 78, 261-274
   Abstract »    PDF »


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