Organic sulfur compounds will be characterised in ultra-high resolution by FT-ICR-MS to improve our understanding about origin and fate of these compounds in sedimentary systems.

The aim for this study is to reconstruct the timing of petroleum generation, the changing gas/oil ratio (GOR) of the petroleum and its physical properties during maturation. The timing and extent of petroleum generation depends on both the thermal history of the source rock and the reaction kinetics of hydrocarbon generation from kerogen.

Free Biomarkers are commonly used as tracers of organic matter type and maturity in sedimentary systems. Covalently bound biomarkers in macromolecules can be used as tracers, but first have to be released intact by hydrogenation

Aim of the CEL paleofire project is to better understand the role of fire on past landscape evolution of the central European lowlands (CEL) on different spatio-temporal scales using a multiple fire proxy approach. Paleofire regimes will be linked with interacting driving mechanisms, climate, vegetation and human activity.

Compositional alterations of the petroleum’s low to highly polar, surface active NSO compounds and their effects on fluid properties during migration and production are investigated in conventional and unconventional petroleum systems.

PEaCH4 v. 2.0 provides a modelling platform to predict, but also to retrace early diagenetic processes in marine sediments. It is the outcome of the BioMeP – Phase II project.

This project addresses the enhancement of understanding physicochemical processes as well as their controls and mechanisms involved in generation of oil and gas, its primary migration in and expulsion from organic-rich, fine-grained siliciclastic source rock in petroleum systems located on the Norwegian continental shelf, central North Sea.

The CarboPerm project is an interdisciplinary German-Russian cooperation project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). It gains a more fundamental understanding of the consequences of the climate warming for Siberian Arctic soils.

CO2MAN (CO2 Reservoir Management) is a collaborative project that facilitates research and development on the geological CO2 storage in a saline aquifer at the pilot site Ketzin.

In this study solid bitumens from SE Turkey and W Iran are being comprehensively characterized using a combination of different established and advanced geochemical analyses. Furthermore, some solid reservoir bitumens and related oils and source rocks from Austria have been included as a separate sub-project.

With the discovery of an ubiquitous deep biosphere on Earth inevitably the question on its potential carbon and energy sources arises, therefore, several studies have been carried out to prove that organic carbon rich lithologies like lignites, coals and kerogen could act as potential “feeder” lithologies for the deep biosphere, leading to the deduction that abiotically driven degradation reactions of the buried organic matter will provide substrates, such as water – soluble low molecular weight organic acids (LMWOA), for microbial activity in deep sediments.

We carry out a detailed investigation of the hydrocarbon plumbing system over the reservoirs of the Hammerfest basin and its dynamics in response to multiple phases of tectonic uplift and glaciations. The main goals of this project are to (1) identify past and present indicators of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons leakage in this basin and (2) estimate the possible leaked volumes of thermogenic methane though time by means of numerical modeling.

Compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) has become a powerful tool for both definition of petroleum systems through better oil-oil and oil-source correlations and identification of biodegradation processes.

Fluid Mobility in the Eagle Ford Shale (FluMo) - Projekt 1: This project is investigating the natural and induced factors governing bulk petroleum fluid compositions in the Eagle Ford Shale play of south eastern Texas.

The compositional signatures of in-situ fluids from a „shale oil play“ are deconvoluted in terms of distributions from different source rock zones with different lithofacies or maturities tapped during horizontal drilling production. The changes in composition of the produced fluids over production time are monitored.

Long-term evolution of the Argentinean Continental margin: implications for hydrocarbon generation, migration, leakage and climate feedback: Austral Basin, southern Argentina

This project is part of the DFG Priority Programme 1319: 'Biological transformations of hydrocarbons without oxygen: from the molecular to the global scale'

By restoring the overall process of petroleum generation-retention-expulsion, this project aims to clarify the controlling factors of hydrocarbons retention in shale layers to locate the reservoir unit, and to evaluate therefore how those retained petroleum translates into producibility.

BioMeP – Phase II was set up to further develop a modelling platform that predicts and quantify the biogenic methane formation in marine sediments.

In this project the nature, occurrence, distribution and processes of microbial communities, associated with pockmark structures on the seabed of the south-western Barents Sea will be investigated.

In this project we will apply a comprehensive petroleum geochemical approach to develop new methods that allow to assess whether an oil represents a mixture or not and to quantitatively deconvolute the contributions of mixing petroleums to different component fractions of reservoired fluids....

This project focuses on the assessment of Gas-In-Place (GIP) and fraccability of the Lower Silurian Longmaxi black shale and Lower Cambrian Qiongzusi black shale in the Sichuan Basin and Upper Yangtze Platform, South China..

The general objective of the M4ShaleGas program is to provide scientific recommendations for minimizing the environmental footprint of shale gas exploration and exploitation in Europe.

The volcanic structures of the maar Mýtina / the scoria cone Železná hůrka and the active magmatic CO2-degassing zone Milhostov - Hartoušov in the Western Eger Rift (Czech Republic)

The mobility of organic and inorganic compounds from black shales in fluid-rock interactions will be investigated taking into account different environmental conditions.

During Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous times, the diachronous opening of the South Atlantic, led to the creation of a system of conjugate passive margins off-shore eastern South America and western Africa. Following the continental break-up, the evolution of the South Atlantic is characterized by different geologic histories and marked diachronisms between north and south, and eastern and western margins.