Descriptive Source Rock Quality Mapping Based on Chemometric Classification of Bulk Geochemical Data, Persian Gulf Basin

Bulk geochemical data of nearly 600 rock chips, collected from various fields across the southern part of the Persian Gulf and covering a wide variety of stratigraphic levels, were analyzed using HCA (Hierarchical Cluster Analysis) and PCA (Principal Component Analysis) chemometric methods. Sixteen different categories at different levels including family, subfamily, and sub-subfamily were identified in the dataset. The overall geochemistry of each category could be defined after performing a separate analysis using their average geochemical parameters as variables. Organic geochemical characterization of various source rock units was greatly facilitated using these results, without biases which are commonly brought by subjectivity of manual data interpretations. A general picture of the organic geochemistry of individual source rocks was obtained and their spatial variability in the area was better illustrated.