Geochemical Characteristics of the Middle Jurassic Coal-Bearing Mudstones in the Dameigou Area (Qaidam Basin, NW China): Implications for Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironment, and Organic Matter Accumulation.

The Qaidam Basin is a prominent oil and gas exploration and production base of NW China's Jurassic coal-bearing strata. Coal-bearing mudstones are important source rocks for unconventional reservoirs and can record valuable paleoenvironment and paleoclimate information. Here, geochemical analysis including total organic carbon (TOC), total sulfur, organic carbon isotopic composition, rock pyrolysis, X-ray diffraction, and major and trace elements were carried out on mudstone samples from the Middle Jurassic coal-bearing strata of the Dameigou section in the Qaidam Basin to reveal the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions during the deposition of the strata and their controls on organic matter accumulation. Results show that the Middle Jurassic Dameigou and Shimengou formations include three significant stages based on their average TOC values of (3.32%, Stage I; 0.87%, Stage II; and 4.42%, Stage III) from the bottom to the top. The organic matter in mudstones in Stages I and II are mainly derived from terrestrial higher plants, while the organic matter has mixed sources of higher plant debris and lower aquatic organisms in Stage III. Paleoclimate parameters indicate that the mudstones in Stage I were deposited under humid and warm conditions, while the climate in Stage II changed to semiarid and warm conditions before turning dry and hot in Stage III. The varying paleoenvironmental characteristics under different paleoclimatic conditions have also been reconstructed. Our results suggest that the accumulation of organic matter in Stages I and II was primarily controlled by redox conditions, while paleoproductivity is the major controlling factor for organic matter accumulation in Stage III.