Organic Matter and Mineralisation: Thermal Alteration, Hydrocarbon Generation and Role in Metallogenesis

This book demonstrates the direct link between petroleum, the derivative of organic materials, and ore bodies. The studies reported here highlight the common factors between hydrocarbons and mineral concentrations, such as heat sources, migration routes and likely traps. It emphasizes the role that hydrothermal processes play in the genesis of both petroleum generation and ore-grade mineralization. The presence of oil residue in the form of bitumen and pyrobitumen in all sediment-hosted ore bodies throughout the geological record is a testimony to their common diagenetic history. Studies of active hydrothermal systems reported in this book describe the processes and derivatives in these environments, linking hydrocarbon generation and mineral precipitation. A comparison with residual oil in many ore bodies and mineralization occurrences in the geological record, as depicted in this book, can be explained in terms of processes in active hydrothermal systems. One of the most interesting and challenging recent discoveries, that of living nano-bacteria, is reported in this book. The ‘nanobes’, as they have recently been dubbed, have been suggested as the link between the living and non-living matter. The resemblance of these nano-organisms to fossil forms observed in a Martian meteorite have been reported recently in the media. Likewise the similarity to nano-bacteria in Archaean sediments is highlighted in two chapters of the book.