The Latin American Association of Organic Geochemistry

ALAGO is a community of students and professionals who work with ACADEMY, RESEARCH, and INDUSTRY, in various Organic Geochemistry areas.

The organization aims to create a space for exchanging information and knowledge updates among researchers, professionals, students, and other interested parties in Latin America and the world.

All these years of scientific congress, workshops, and interactions between universities, R&D centers, and companies were crucial to lead the Latin American scientific community to a high level of advances in the organic geochemistry area.

2018 is a special year because we are celebrating 30 years of ALAGO. All these years of scientific congress, workshops, and interactions between universities, R&D centers, and companies were crucial to lead the Latin American scientific community to a high level of advances in the organic geochemistry area.

Last presidents

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2018 - 2024

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2014 - 2018

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2012 - 2014

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1996 - 2000

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1992 - 1996

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1988 - 1992

THE HISTORY OF ORGANIC GEOCHEMISTRY 

IN LATIN AMERICA

L.A.F. Trindade1, C.V. Araujo2, E.V. Santos Neto3, M.D. Rangel4​

1 UFRJ, 2 ABGP, 3 UFF, 4 UFG​

Introduction

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XIX to middle XX centuries:​

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Non-systematic geochemical studies ​

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The second half of the XX century onwards: ​

Geochemistry groups were established in several Latin American countries  ​

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This presentation will focus on the most relevant developments and achievements of Latin American Organic Geochemistry Groups.​

It includes contribution of many geochemists from several countries, but some projects might be missing. ​

Brazil

1973: Creation of the Organic Geochemistry Laboratory in PETROBRAS R&D Center – CENPES, coordinated by Justo Camejo Ferreira.

70’s: Lab of Coal Petrography at CIENTEC, coordinated by Joana Nahuys.

1975: Project on the Evaluation of the generation potential of the Brazilian Marginal Basins.

1978: UFRJ – Development of the method and publication of the results on extraction by reactive solid phase.

1979: Characterization of tricyclic terpenes molecular structures by Francisco Radler de Aquino Neto

1979: Creation of the Coal Petrography Laboratory by Zuleika Corrêa da Silva at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). The main project was the study of coals in the Parana Basin.

1979: Creation of the Geochemistry lab at Technological Research Institute (IPT) in São Paulo.

México (1970)

Publication of the synthesis “Naturaleza bio-orgánica del petróleo” by Carlos Arredondo. In the late 70´s the geochemistry lab of IMP began to apply new techniques in Organic Geochemistry to support the Petroleum Exploration in Mexico. Head of the group - Roberto Bertrand Camargo

Cuba

1972: Formation of the Scientific Group to study the aspects of Petroleum Geochemistry and Source Rocks Coordinated by Vladimir V. Pairazián from the Soviet Union.

1972: Creation of the Centro de Investigaciones Geológicas.

Venezuela

1974: Creation of the Organic Geochemistry Section - Institute of Geochemistry of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) by Carlos López and Jean Pasquali Z. with colaboration of  Richard Francis Leo.

1976: Beginning of the Geochemistry Investigation in INTEVEP  coordinated by Gian Paolo Klar.

1978: Fernando Cassani joined this group and the laboratory activities began including techniques - organic extraction, chromatography, pyrolysis Rock-Eval and organic petrography.

Argentina

Late 80’s: Upgrading of the YPF labs, including GC-MS, elemental analysis, and organic petrography. Geochemical studies of oils from San Jorge Basin and regional geochemical evaluations.

Creation of the Geological Resources Investigation Center (CIRGEO):  research group on palinofacies and organic petrography under the leadership of Sergio Archangelsky and Hector Villar.

Technological Cooperation between CIRGEO and YPF.

Brazil

1980: Surface Geochemistry in the Juruá Area, Solimões Basin.

Early 80’s: First Service Companies on OG, EXLOG and UBM.

1982: Habitat of Petroleum in the Espírito Santo Basin.

1982: First application of biomarkers for oil-source rock correlation.

1983: Cooperation between Petrobras and UFRJ on biomarkers.

1984: Evaluation of Petroleum Systems of Brazilian Sedimentary Basins.

1988: Marcio Mello Thesis on biomarkers of Brazilian Basins.

1989: Cooperation between UNICAMP and Petrobras R&D Center on the study of organic acids and synthesis of compounds.

Late 80’s: Graduate studies at UFRJ

Research Groups at CENPES/PETROBRAS, UFRJ, UFRGS, UNICAMP, IPT.

Colombia

1987: Creation of the Geochemistry Lab at the Instituto Colombiano del Petróleo (ICP).

Research Group: António Rangel, Blanca Giraldo, Astrid Blandón.

Techniques: TOC, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, organic petrography, and GC-MS

Late 80’s: Ingeominas started geochemical evaluations by  Heliodoro Bonilla.

Cuba

1980-1985: Geochemical evaluation projects on oil reservoirs and seals.

Mexico

1980: Organic geochemical studies of Mexican Sedimentary Basins.

1981: Oil source-rock correlation studies

1982: Identification of 5 oil types in La Sonda del Campeche by Bertrand.

1983: Identification of Tithonian as the most important source rocks in Mexico by Holguin and Romero.

1985: Identification of Kimmeridian - Tithonian as source rocks of Tampico Mizantla Basin.

1987: Creation of Organic Petrography Lab at IMP.

Venezuela

1981: First geochemical evaluations of the Maracaibo, Sierra de Perijá, Falcon, and Barinas Basins by INTEVEP.

1984: Geochemical evaluations of Monagas, Serrania del Interior, and Guarico Basins by INTEVEP. Research Group: Suhas Talukdar, Fernando Cassani, Osvaldo Gallango, Carlos Vallejos, Nidya Jordán, Armando Ruggiero and Marcel Chien-A-Lien.

1985: Kinetics study of La Luna Formation. Late 80’s: Biomarker studies by Cassani.

Late 80’s: Simon Bolivar University's first projects by R. Jaffé

Late 80’s: Graduate studies at the UCV.

1988

Foundation of the Latin American Association of Organic Geochemistry – ALAGO. 

First President was Paulo Cesar Gaglianone from the Petrobras R&D Center.

First ALAGO Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Argentina

Mid 90’s: Creation of Chemistry Laboratory (LAQUI) coordinated by Maria del Rosario Rosso, Ines Labayén and Susana Hernaez.

1996: 2D regional basin modeling of the San Jorge Basin by Jorge Rodriguez and Ralf Littke.

1999: First Symposium on Petroleum Systems in Argentina.

Late 90’s: Studies on source rocks, petroleum and basin modeling by YPF and Repsol/YPF.

Brazil

Early 90’s: Environmental geochemical studies at UFF.

1992: Intensive cooperation and joint projects on Petroleum Systems between CENPES/Petrobras and PDVSA, ECOPETROL, PEMEX and CUPET.

Mid 90’s: Several theses on biomarker synthesis and organic acids at UNICAMP.

1997: Geochemistry Group at Petrobras R&D Center recognized as the first Center of Excellence of the Company – CEGEQ.

1997: MSc course on Petroleum Systems. Cooperation between CENPES/Petrobras and COPPE/UFRJ, involving international students.

Late 90’s: Geochemistry courses at UENF.

Late 90’s: Reservoir geochemistry studies at CENPES/PETROBRAS.

1997: MSc course on Petroleum Systems. Cooperation between CENPES/Petrobras and COPPE/UFRJ, involving international students.

Late 90’s: Geochemistry courses at UENF.

Late 90’s: Reservoir geochemistry studies at CENPES/PETROBRAS.

Colombia

1990: Geochemical evaluation of the Llanos Orientales Basin leading to the discovery of Cusiana Oil Field.

1992: Beginning of a fruitful cooperation with CENPES.

1996: Cooperation with USGS (Les Magoon) on the characterization of Colombian Petroleum Systems.

Late 90’s: Reservoir Geochemistry studies.

Late 90’s: Cooperation with HARC.

Cuba

1994-1997:Geochemical Evaluation of the Northern Cuban Marginal Basin, awarded by the Cuban Academy of Sciences.

1993: Project on the geology and hydrocarbon potential of Cuba.

Late 90’s: Reservoir Geochemistry Studies.

Research Group: Mirtha Príncipe Valdes, José Orlando López Quintero, Plácido Campos Jorge and Irán Ramos Raimundo.

Mexico

Early 90’s: first study on molecular geochemistry of the Sierra de Chiapas by IMP.

1998: PEMEX and IMP published a Geochemical Atlas of Mexico.

1999: First regional classification of oil families of the Mexican sector of GOM by Guzman & Mello.

1999: Gas geochemistry of the Burgos Basin by Carrillo.

Venezuela

Early 90’s: Characterization of the Orinoco Tar Belt crudes.

90’s: First geochemical modeling of the Oriental Basin.

90’s: New ideas on the HC migration from the Faja up to El Furrial in the Cretaceous sequence.

1993: First studies on asphaltenes applied to production geochemistry.

1993: Identification of Tertiary crudes in the Oriental Basin by Rafael Tocco, Armando Ruggiero and Margarita Alberdi.

1995: Production geochemistry study in the Maracaibo Basin.

1998: Environmental Geochemistry at the School of Chemistry at UCV.