The second edition of The Biomarker Guide is a fully updated and expanded version of this essential reference. Now in two volumes, it provides a comprehensive account of the role that biomarker technology plays both in petroleum exploration and in understanding Earth history and processes. Biomarkers and Isotopes in Petroleum Exploration and Earth History itemizes parameters used to genetically correlate petroleum and interpret thermal maturity and extent of biodegradation. It documents most known petroleum systems by geologic age throughout Earth history. The Biomarker Guide is an invaluable resource for geologists, petroleum geochemists, biogeochemists, and environmental scientists.

Biomarkers are compounds found in crude oil with structures inherited from once-living organisms. They persist in oil spills, refinery products and archaeological artifacts, and can be used to identify the origin, geological age and environmental conditions prevalent during their formation and alteration. These two volumes will be an invaluable resource for geologists, petroleum geochemists, biogeochemists, environmental and forensic scientists, natural product chemists and archaeologists. The first of two volumes of The Biomarker Guide discusses the origins of biomarkers and introduces basic chemical principles relevant to their study. It goes on to discuss analytical techniques, and the applications of biomarkers in environmental and archaeological problems.

This book examines recent advances in the study of geochemical biomarkers, more commonly known as molecular fossils. These advances cover a wide range of applications including formation of different ranks of coals, the diagenetic fate of biological compounds in natural waters, the characterization of depositional environments of petroleum source rocks and the classification of precursor organisms by their molecular fossil remnants. In addition, this volume contains the most extensive collection of material on geochemical markers of the continental basins of China yet to appear in the Western literature.