Oil-source rock correlations - Limitations and recommendations

Although these approaches will improve conventional oil-source rock correlation efforts, ultimately they may not be needed if inversion methods become more reliable. The ability to invert compositional data for crude oil - i.e., predict the age, lithology, maturity, and other characteristics of a source rock solely through chemical analysis of its expelled oil - could eventually result in successful oil-source rock “correlations” in which source rock analysis for oil-source rock correlation purposes is less critical.