RESEARCH ON BIOMARKERS RELEASED BY PYROLYSIS OF THE INSOLUBLE ORGANIC MATTER IN GEOCHEMICAL SAMPLES.

这项研究涉及两个对象。其中一个课题是发展我们最初设计的离线热解技术，用于分析沉积物中残留的（有机溶剂-不溶性）有机物。本研究从预测在热解产物中发现一些新的生物标志物开始，这些生物标志物是常规溶剂萃取无法获得的。如果这是真的，该分析技术将为过去的沉积条件或古环境提供深刻的证据，因为人们认为这些大分子基质中可能完整地保存了丰富的分子信息。该方法以美国绿河页岩为样本进行了检验。通过将该技术应用于从被称为日本石油源岩的中新世海岸海相沉积物中分离出来的干酪根样品，确立了其实用性。另一个课题是在现代海洋和湖泊沉积物中寻找新的生物标志物，以及生活在强酸性或高温温泉等特殊条件下的生物样本（藻垫）。在本课题中，不仅在热解产物中检测了信息生物标志物，而且在溶剂提取物中也检测了信息生物标志物。本研究基金购买的气相色谱-质谱仪主要用于分析无环和环脂肪烃和烷烃酸。结果表明，在GC和GC- ms分析之前，这些可能的生物标志物可以通过制备分离进行详细的研究。在众所周知的生物标记物——热解产物脂环烃（甾烷/甾烷、三萜/三萜）中，一个非常有趣的发现是，它们的组成剖面在每个类别中都是共同的，而在近代沉积物、中新世海岸海相沉积岩和藻垫的类别中则明显不同。

The study involves two subjects. One subject is to develop our originally devised off-line pyrolysis technique for the analysis of residual (organic solvent-insoluble) organic matter in sediments. This research started with a forecast that certain novel biomarkers would be found in the pyrolysis products that could not be obtained by a usual solvent extraction. If it is true, the analytical technique will provide profound evidences for the past sedimentary conditions or the paleoenvironments, because it is thought that fertile molecular information may be preserved intact in these macromolecular matrices. The methodology was examined by using US Green River shale as a sample. The usefulness was established by applying this technique to the kerogen samples isolated from the Miocene coastal marine sediments known as the source rocks of Japanese oil. The other subject was to search for novel biomarkers in modern marine and lacustrine sediments as well as biological samples (algal mats) inhabiting peculiar conditions such as strongly acidic or high temperature hot spring waters. In this subject, detection of informative biomarkers was examined not only in the pyrolysis products but also in the solvent extracts. The GC-MS apparatus purchased by this research fund was used for both subjects to analyze primarily acyclic and cyclic aliphatic hydrocarbons and alkanoic acids. It was proved that these possible biomarkers could be investigated in detail by the preparative fractionation prior to GC and GC-MS analyses. A quite interesting finding in the pyrolysate alicyclic hydrocarbons (steranes/sterenes, triterpanes/triterpenes), which are well-known biomarkers, was that the compositional profile was common in each category and apparently variable among the categories of Recent sediments, Miocene coastal marine sedimentary rocks and algal mats.