Composition and origin of fuel from the hut of explorer Robert Falcon Scott, Cape Evans, Antarctica

There are five files on the CD. a)a poster presented at the Australian Organic Geochemistry Conference held in Leura, NSW in February of this year, b)a brief description highlighting some salient points of the poster; presented orally, c)an abstract of this work included in the conference proceedings, d)the conference proceedings and e)manuscript of a full paper submitted for publication in the Journal of Organic Geochemistry, including a table of data Geochemical analyses of the fuel used for the motor driven sledges used by the explorer Robert Falcon Scott for his 1911/1912 quest to the South Pole indicates that it is a straight run gasoline.

The presence of bicadinanes, oleanane and other oleanoid angiosperm markers indicate that the feedstock oil was likely to be sourced from terrestrial source rocks of Tertiary age in the South East Asian region. The overall chemical composition of the fuel in its present state indicates that it may have been too heavy for usage in polar regions.