Maturation Models

The 123D Simulation model simulates vitrinite reflectance according to the Burnham & Sweeney (1988) model. This model is based on distributed kinetics for four sets of first order reactions each subdivided into a subset of reactions. The model keeps track of the hydrogen-carbon and oxygen-carbon index and converts these figures into a vitrinite reflectance value according to either McCartney-Teichm�ller's (1972) or Davis' (1978) empirical relation.

Transformation of biomarkers such as sterane isomerization, steroid aromatization, and hopane isomerization can also be simulated. The activation energy, the pre-exponential factor, and the ratio between the forward and the reverse reaction rate can either be used as default values according to data proposed by MacKenzie et al. (1988) or assigned by the user.

Tmax determined from pyrolysis is another maturity parameter, that can be simulated. The initial and final temperature in the pyrolysis process and the heating rate can either be used as default values according to data proposed by Waples (1985) and Tissot and Welte (1978) or assigned by the user.

The distribution of fission track lengths can also be modeled based on the closing velocity model proposed by Duddy et al. (1988). The distributions are only modeled at user-defined locations in the basin. For state of the art fission track modeling (Donelick et al., 1999) a direct link to AFTSolve� (Ketcham et al., 2000) from Donelick Analytical, Inc. has been implemented.