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Four isoheptanes in petroleum display a remarkable invariance in a ratio of sums of concentrations. The isoheptanes are not at thermodynamic equilibrium, nor are they fixed to some constant composition. The four isomers display coherent change in relative amounts but maintain invariance in the ratio of sums. Within sets of genetically related petroleum samples, invariance reaches levels that approach the limits of our analytical precision. The invariance is inconsistent with a chemical origin that involves the thermal fragmentation of natural products or their derivatives. It suggests a reaction process at steady state, in which relative rates of product formation are constant. A mechanism is proposed in which the four isoheptanes are formed pairwise and sequentially through two intermediates in a catalytic process that operates at steady state.

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Thermal cracking of kerogens and bitumens is widely accepted as the major source of natural gas (thermal gas). Decomposition is believed to occur at high temperatures, between 100 and 200°C in the subsurface and generally above 300°C in the laboratory. Although there are examples of gas deposits possibly generated at lower temperatures, and reports of gas generation over long periods of time at 100°C, robust gas generation below 100°C under ordinary laboratory conditions is unprecedented. Here we report gas generation under anoxic helium flow at temperatures 300° below thermal cracking temperatures. Gas is generated discontinuously, in distinct aperiodic episodes of near equal intensity. In one three-hour episode at 50°C, six percent of the hydrocarbons (kerogen & bitumen) in a Mississippian marine shale decomposed to gas (C1–C5). The same shale generated 72% less gas with helium flow containing 10 ppm O2 and the two gases were compositionally distinct. In sequential isothermal heating cycles (~1 hour), nearly five times more gas was generated at 50°C (57.4 μg C1–C5/g rock) than at 350°C by thermal cracking (12 μg C1–C5/g rock).The position that natural gas forms only at high temperatures over geologic time is based largely on pyrolysis experiments under oxic conditions and temperatures where low-temperature gas generation could be suppressed. Our results indicate two paths to gas, a high-temperature thermal path, and a low-temperature catalytic path proceeding 300° below the thermal path. It redefines the time-temperature dimensions of gas habitats and opens the possibility of gas generation at subsurface temperatures previously thought impossible.