A field evidence for mineral-catalyzed formation of gas during coal maturation

The current geochemical view is that hydrocarbons generated from organic matter disseminated in fine-grained sedimentary rocks and coals are controlled primarily by temperature and duration of heating (geologic time). Recently, this view has been questioned by several investigations with respect to formation of oil, natural gas, and coalbed methane. They showed that mineral catalysis/transient metal catalysis is a more geologically realistic pathway for the formation of CBM and natural gas. Artificial coal maturation results indicate that raw coals generate more hydrocarbon gas than demineralized coal. The two field cases of probable mineral/metal catalysis in action to form natural gas and CBM described here give credibility to the various experimental results with coal and fine-grained carbonaceous rocks that support the view that transition-metal/mineral catalysis is probably a major pathway through which oil/gas and CBM are formed. And the search for such metals and minerals in sedimentary rocks and coals can therefore be a useful pursuit in oil/gas and CBM exploration.