摘要：Fossil fuel resources are invaluable to economic growth and social development. Understanding theformation and distribution of fossil fuel resources is critical for the search and exploration of them. Until now,the vertical distribution depth of fossil fuel resources has not been confirmed due to different understandings oftheir origins and the substantial variation in reservoir depths from basin to basin. Geological and geochemicaldata of 13634 source rock samples from 1286 exploration wells in six representative petroliferous basins wereexamined to identify the maximum burial depth of active source rocks in each basin, which is referred to in thisstudy as the active source rock depth limit (ASDL). Beyond the ASDL, source rocks no longer generate or expelhydrocarbons and become inactive. Therefore, the ASDL also sets the maximum depth for fossil fuel resources.The ASDLs of basins around the world are found to range from 3000 to 16000m, while the thermal maturities(Ro) of source rocks at the ASDLs are almost the same, with Ro ≈ 3.5±0.5%. The Ro of 3.5% can be regardedas a general criterion to identify ASDLs. High heat flow and more oil-prone kerogen are associated with shallowASDLs. In addition, tectonic uplift of source rocks can significantly affect ASDLs; 21.6 billion tons of reservesin six representative basins in China and 52926 documented oil and gas reservoirs in 1186 basins around theworld are all located above ASDLs, demonstrating the universal presence of ASDLs in petroliferous basins andtheir control on the vertical distribution of fossil fuel resources. The data used in this study are deposited in therepository of the PANGAEA database at: https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.900865 (Pang et al., 2019).
