Abstract
Throught using the current published literature and attempting to gain insights into the maturation history of sedimentary basins, in particular the time of potential oil generation, the author has become aware of certain problems associated with the diagrammatic representation of burial histories and rank evolution. This note does not represent the product of any new experimental work or any rthinking of the thermodynamics of the complex organic reactions involved in maturation of kerogen; I have simply taken published “models” of organic maturation and attempted to apply them to a simple and, I think, intuitively understandable pictorial representation of the progressive evolution of rank within a sedimentary colume.

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