230 Int J Petrochem Res. ISSN: 2638-1974 Volume 2 • Issue 3 • 1000140 International Journal of Petrochemistry and Research Research Article Open Access Variants of Specific Surfaces in the Bakoven Member: Union Springs Formation of the Marcellus Subgroup in Central New York State (USA) Fosu-Duah Evelyn Love 1 *, Eswaran Padmanabhan 1 , D. Jeffery Overs 2 and Jose Antonio Gamez Vintaned 1 1 Department of Geosciences, University of Technology Petronas, Malaysia 2 State University of New York, Geneseo, USA Article Info *Corresponding author: Fosu-Duah Evelyn Love Department of Geosciences University of Technology Petronas Malaysia E-mail: love.duah@gmail.com Received: November 26, 2018 Accepted: December 10, 2018 Published: December 17, 2018 Citation: Evelyn Love FD, Padmanabhan E, Over DJ, Gamez Vintaned JA. Variants of Specific Surfaces in the Bakoven Member: Union Springs Formation of the Marcellus Subgroup in Central New York State (USA). Int J Petrochem Res. 2018; 2(3): 230-235. doi: 10.18689/ijpr-1000140 Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Published by Madridge Publishers Abstract The variants of specific surfaces of 40 samples from the Bakoven Member of the Union Springs formation have been studied using physicochemical methods. Variations in the specific surface areas were attributed to differences in the quantities of clay minerals as well as organic matter content and types. The 2:1 clay minerals like illite and smectite were the main contributors of specific surface areas due to their large intracrystalline surfaces. Low external surface areas reported in some samples might be due to either the competition of adsorptive sites for nitrogen molecules with organic matter or the organic matter blocking of some adsorptive sites and micropores on the sample surface. The opposite is true for most of the samples that reported high TOC values suggesting that organic matter might have provided additional sorption sites for the polar compound but further study is needed to clarify. An excellent positive relationship between surface area and total organic carbon suggested that most organic matter in the samples are adsorbed. Keywords: Clays; Organic matter; Specific Surface Area; Micropores Introduction Specific surface area (SSA) (expressed in squared meters/gram (m 2 /g).) is used in literature to refer to the area per unit mass of sample [1, 2]. It is known to greatly influence various chemical and physical properties of rocks. Physisorption, heat loss or gain resulting from such adsorption, swelling and shrinking are closely related to SSA [3, 4]. It has been shown that SSA correlates remarkably with important properties such as exchangeable cations/anions and water retention. For instance, Na-saturated clay fractions from a sample have surface area values that are 40% lesser than the same fraction when Ca- saturated. Aside cation exchange capacity (CEC), SSA may be the dominant factor in controlling the fundamental behaviors of shales [5]. The specific surface area in shale differs remarkably as a result of differences in texture, mineralogy, particle size distribution and organic matter (OM) content [3, 6]. This implies that not every part of the surface of a sample contributes to important geological processes such as adsorption and ion exchange. Fine-grained particles particularly the layered silicates are the main contributors of the inorganic surface areas in rocks [2]. Nonexpanding clays like kaolinites and some micas have only external surfaces ranging from 10-70m 2 /g [7] while phyllosilicates like smectite have large internal as well as external surfaces giving SSA up to 810m 2 /g, depending upon the amount of internal surface exposed by expansion. Consequently, the types of clay minerals in a shale largely determine their SSA and related properties. ISSN: 2638-1974