The naphthides are considred as promising sources of extraction of various metals: V, Mo, U, etc. The idea emphasized in this paper is completing this list with the gold. The authors had a chance to study this problem when making a geological map and searching for the gold ores and placers for the Yagodnoye Geological Survey Department, in the Magadan region, North-Eeast Siberia. Here, high absorption abilities of petroleum with respect to gold was used in laboratory analyses. Later on, the research was continued at a natural object: the Talin Oil Field in the Middle Ob area, West Siberia. Here, the rocks of the oil collector are represented by the alluvial quartz sands and the gravelites of the Sherkalin horizon (J1) of the Tyumen set (J1+2). Accumulation material of the horizon oil deposits is the upper paleosoic rocks of the Ural-Siberian folded region. In the other similar deposits, significant industrial ore bodies and placers of gold are known. Hence, it was natural to assume a gold presence in the ancient alluvium of the Sherkalin horizon due to a buried gold placer. The testing verified these assumptions. In all three samples taken from this oil field, the atomic-absorptional method showed concentrations of gold much higher than 1 g/t. This is quite comparable to the average industrial gold concentrations, which are 4 to 10 g/t for ore mines, and 0.2 to 1 g/t for placers.

Keywords:
gravelite, reservoir characterization, basement, bitumen, terrigenic sediment, sea terrigenic sediment, concentration, oil sand, naphthide, sediment
Subjects:
Reservoir Characterization, Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs, Oil sand, oil shale, bitumen
Copyright 2000, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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