CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF THE MINERAL MATTER OF THE ATTARAT UM GHUDRAN OIL SHALE, CENTRAL JORDAN

The concession area of the Jordan Oil Shale Energy Co (JOSE) is located in the southern border zone of the Attarat Um Ghudran deposit, next to the Wadi Maghara deposit, both consisting of marinite type oil shale (OS). JOSE has drilled a regular grid of boreholes with a full coring of the up to 90 m thick OS seam and its lower and upper contact layers. Visually, the OS unit is a rather homogenous dark-colored (grey, black, brownish grey) succession of finely bedded (laminated) kerogen-bearing carbonate rocks that has been in earlier papers described as a uniform lithological unit. The aim of the geological and lithological studies of the JOSE exploration area was to investigate the vertical variation of OS composition and, if present, to define layers within the OS unit, and to identify lithological varieties and chemical composition of OS present in different layers. The layers differ in rate of internal heterogeneity reflected in variation of standard deviation values.