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The Quaternary sediments of the Chiawobao basin in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, represented by cores from drill wells, were studied to understand their amino acids, fatty acids, sterols, steranes, terpanes and alkanes. As a result, it has been recognized that the organic matter in sediments were mainly derived from zooplankton and phytoplankton, as well as high plnat debris. During early diagenesis, the amino acid content had dropped sharply, and n-alkane with a low molecular weight had been generated from fatty acids through decarboxylic function, whereas sterols seemed to be more stable as compared with fatty acids, and the odd carbon preference in n-alkanes may have remained until the late diagenesis stage. The results from this study have provided valuable data for understanding the evolution of organic matter at the early diagenesis stage.

Since many immature oils have been found in a number of Tertiary basins of China, a series of cores (Oligocene) and several immature rocks after thermal simulation have been investigated for their biomarker distributions by GC and GC-MS. The presence of biomarkers in the cores seem to follow a rule of less to greater stability of hopenes, ββ-hopanes, diasterenes with increasing the depth of cores, and subsequently the 22R, 22S configuration of hopanes reaches equilibrium. The thermal simulation experiments with immature rocks demonstrated that it is possible to generate some immature oils from immature rocks during the diagenesis stage. The tricyclic terpanes generated from source rocks during diagenesis stage tended to be enriched in the oils compared to their source rocks and the relative abundance of lower molecular weight tricyclic terpanes to their higher molecular weight homologues may be useful for the subdivision of diagenesis.