Compared with coal, petroleum (including asphalties and bitumens) is far more spesific

in the concentration of rare elements. Vanadium shows a strong affinity for petroleum, and over
70 % V2O5 has been recorded from petroleum ash. Some shipping companies have found it
profitable to buy fuel oil from a particular locality, since the ashes can be sold as vanadium ore.
In the famous Minasragra deposit in Peru the vanadium accurs with asphaltite. According to
Goldscmidth, the typical elements associated with petroleum and bitumen are vanadium,
molybdenum, and nickel. He believed that they are present as organometallic compounds whch
migrate with the hydrocarbons; hence they may have been active in facilitating the formation of
petroleum from organic remains. These elements may have been extracted from sea water by
organisms that utilized them in the form of metal organic porphyrin compounds. The porphyrin
compounds are exceedingly stable and have been recognized in shales, asphalts, and petroleum
dating back to the Palaeozoic; they are evidently able to with stand the ordinary processes if
diagenesis.
As discussed in the chapter on sedimentary rocks, the black bituminious shales also
show unusual concentration of minor elements. An econonically important example is the
Mansfeld Kupferschiefer of Germany, which is a bituminious shale with a considerable copper
content. It is worked as a copper ore and is markedly enriched in as As, Ag, Zn, Cd, Pb, V, Mo,
Sb,Bi, Au, and the platinum metals. The increased interest in uranium in recent years has
revealed that this element, too, is often enriched in the black shales, content of up to 400 g/ton
being not uncommon.
THE GEOCHEMICAL CYCLE OF CARBON
Carbon, athough not one of the more abundant elements in the earth, plays an important
role, perhaps the most important one, in geochemistry, because carbon compounds are essential
for every known from of life. The geochemistry of carbon is closely linked with that of the other
essential elements of organisms, especially hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur. Various
aspects of the carbon cycle have been studied for over a century. In 1933 Goldschmidt developed
the concept of the carbon cycle in both its biological and geological aspects andmade
quantitative estimates if the amount of carbon in the different parts of the cycle. Some of these
estimates have been revised by later workers, especially Borchert (1951) and Wickman (1956);
figure 9.6 is a synthesis of the available data. Borchert gives a figure of 5500 g/cm2 for the total

amount of carbon in the earths crust (mean thickness 16 km); the excess over the amount in
carbonate rocks and as organic carbon represents the carbon in igneous and metamorphic rocks.
Of the 700 g as organic carbon Borchert estimates that about 1 g is present as extractable coal
and bituminous sedimentary rocks.