Fatty acids and n-alkanes in Green River oil shale; changes with depth

This paper discusses the changes with depth for fatty acids extracted from Green River Formation oil shale. These fatty acid changes are compared to the previously reported n-alkane changes. Ten samples, one from the Mahogany zone and 9 from a core, were extracted to obtain the fatty acids. Carbon number distributions were obtained for the fatty acids by mass spectrometry. These distributions were significantly different from the top sample to the bottom sample. These data were gathered to test the postulate that n-alkanes were formed by decarboxylation of fatty acids. Factors other than decaroxylation are shown to contribute significantly to the n-alkane distribution.