Due to their proximity to industriai regions, as well Bituminous shales of Turkey have been studied as their relatively favourable mining possibilities, the from time to time since 1928. Due to their increasing bituminous shales of the Göynük area were among importance in recent years, they have been once again the first to be studied. subjected to detailed investigations. The bituminous shales of this area are interbedded Turkish bituminous shales show a wide geographical with reddish coloured argillaceous sandstones, limedistribution as well as a large stratigraphical range; stones and argillaceous limestones of Oligocene age, however, they are more concentrated in formations of which form the Göynük (Kabalar) syncline. The Devonian, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Eocene, Oligocene and average thickness of the bituminous shales is about Neogene age. The bituminous shales, occasionally 125 m. The reserves have been estimated to be in the reaching to several hundred metres in thickness, con- order of at least 1 billion tons. The bitumen content tain 2-21 % bitumen and form reserves in the order of varies between 1-14%. Its maximum calorific value is several billion tons. 1900; ash content varies from SO-SO%.
Reference to Göynük Area". In this paper, first of all, a general survey on the Turkish bituminous shales has Bituminous shales of Turkey have been subjected been presented. This is followed by a detailed account to study from time to time since 1928. The primary of the Göynük (Bolu) bituminous shales which were objective in these studies was to produce crude oil studied during 1966. from the shales. Since the grade of the bituminous In addition to new data collected during these shales studied at the time was too low for crude oil recent investigations, use has also been made of various production, they were regarded as uneconomic and earlier reports which are kept in MTA archives. We therefore unimportant. gratefully wish to acknowledge the help and en-I n any case, such studies were generally in the nature couragement of the Generai Director of MTA as well of prospection reports, with no detailed investigations. as the Director of the Geology Department, in the Since recent technological advances have made it preparation of this paper. possible to use low grade bituminous shales economically, the Mineral Research and Exploration Institute of Turkey (MTA) has started to re-evaluate the bitumi- DISTRIBUTION OF BITUMINOUS nous shales of Turkey. SHALES IN TURKEY For this purpose, the localities selected for initiai work were in Göynük (Bolu) and in Bahçecik (Izmit) According to prospector's reports, bituminous areas, both of which have the advantage of being near shales are found in most parts of Turkey, except industrial centres as well as being favourable for mining in Thrace and Middle and Eastern Anatolia regions purposes. (Fig. 1).
Because of wide
