Organic petrographic investigations of the Kupferschiefer in northern Germany

Comparative studies of organic matter petrography of the late palaeozoic black shales from Southwestern Poland

“…It is visible as small white dots, irregular aggregates and massive lenses. Similar forms of micrinite occurrences in the Kupferschiefer were also described in Germany (Wolf et al, 1989;Koch, 1997) and Poland (Nowak, 2003). Sherwood and Cook (1986) observed these forms in Early Cretaceous oil shales from the Eromanga basin in Australia, and were also recognized by Stasiuk (1993).…”

“…The modification of type 2 is described by the author of this paper as vitrinite-like matter/maceral (see Appendix); Koch (1997), however, has defined this kind of material noticed in the transitional zone of the Kupferschiefer, directly as vitrinite-like bituminite comparing it to bituminite I of the Teichmüller and Ottenjann (1977) classification. In white light it is lighter in colour than bituminite of the reduced facies from the same Kupferschiefer sequence.…”

“…In such a meaning it has been used earlier by Koch (1997). Bituminite is the most common organic constituent in the Kupferschiefer ranging from 41 up to 85 vol.% (Nowak, 2003).…”

“…Taking into account the state of art of bituminite, both distinguished types may be compared to bituminite I of the relevant classification proposed by Teichmüller and Ottenjann (1977) or to vitrinite-like bituminite of Koch (1997). However, the vitrinite-like matter/maceral of the Kupferschiefer is not included in the internationally accepted classification of bituminite.…”

“…Kupferschiefer typically contains high amounts of organic matter (1-30%, average 6%). The organic matter content in the Kupferschiefer raised the interest of geologists in Germany (Wolf et al, 1989;Koch, 1997). Petrographic studies of organic material from the Polish Kupferschiefer were commenced by Speczik and Püttmann (1987), Speczik (1994) and Sun et al (1995), who focused their research on the Foresudetic Monocline (the "Rudna" mine) and Northsudetic Basin (the "Konrad" mine).…”