Vitrinite recycling: diagnostic criteria and reflectance changes during weathering and reburial.
The aim of this study was first to review or even identify reliable diagnostic criteria to distinguish recycled and autochthonous vitrinite particles and, second, to examine and try to explain the impact of weathering and reburial on optical changes (reflectance) of recycled material. The work was based on indigenous and recycled particles of two sample sets from two wells drilled in the Senegalese margin basin and the Ardèche paleomargin (SE France), respectively. In addition to reflectance measurements, the studied samples have also been analysed by Rock-Eval pyrolysis. For both sample sets, hydrogen index (HI) and oxygen index (OI) values suggest a type III organic matter of dominant terrestrial origin. Two main diagnostic criteria appear particularly useful to identify indigenous and recycled vitrinite particles: the first is the clear genetic relationship between telinite and collotelinite; the second is the presence of pyrite framboid inclusions in indigenous vitrinite. The pyrite–vitrinite association illustrates the relationship between sulphate reduction, pyritisation, and in situ organic matter transformation through gelification process. However, application of both diagnostic criteria requires some additional information about depositional conditions (i.e., anoxicity) and thermal maturity of the studied samples. Weathering has no or only very limited effect on vitrinite reflectance. During their new burial history, recycled vitrinites follow a reflectance evolution path close to that of inertinites and thus appear as transitional materials between vitrinite and inertinite macerals. Consistently, this behaviour implies that recycled vitrinite reflectance changes during burial diagenesis do not solely depend on their chemical composition but, most probably too, on combined chemical and structural changes inherited from their past burial history and from the impact of weathering during their recycling stage.