“…The samples have OSI (oil saturation index) values ranging from 3.09 to 186.19 mg HC/ g TOC, with an average value of 69.80 mg HC/g TOC (Table 1). The T max value represents the temperature at which the S 2 peak is at its maximum, ranging from 427 to 460 C, with an average of 443 C. It should be noticed that the poor S 2 values will decrease the confidence of T max values, especially those samples with S 2 values <0.5 mg HC/g rock (Dewing and Sanei, 2009), meanwhile, T max values might be anomalous or suppressed due to the carry-over effect of S 1 onto S 2 (Bordenave et al, 1993;Dewing and Sanei, 2009;Wang et al, 2015; and references therein). In samples studied, SLB12, SLB14, and SLB16 show poor S 2 values, and samples of SLB6, SLB7, SLB9 and SLB19 present high ratios of S 1 and S 2 , indicating the lower confidence of T max values of those samples, however, most of them should be in the oil generation stage, deriving from their burial depths and OSI values.…”