Elena Lvovna Imranova

Dry steppe chestnut soils (Kastanozems) of the Tamsagbulag oil field are subject to intensive technogenic impact of oil production facilities. It has been established that the technogenic impact on chestnut soil during oil production is manifested in the discreteness of physical-chemical parameters in the surface horizon. The value of the miner- alization of the aqueous extract ranged from 32.5 to 325.0 mg∙L-1, the specific electrical conductivity from 65.4 to
647.0 μS∙cm-1. The concentration of hydrocarbons (HC) varied from 7 to 647 mg∙kg-1 and, with rare exceptions, was at the level of background values (100 mg/kg) established for oil production areas. The proportion of HC from the organic carbon content Corg varied widely, from 0.01 to 6.20%. Gas-chromatographic analysis of the molecular weight distribution of n-alkanes in the composition of HC showed that high-molecular homologues C27–C39 dominate in the surface horizon of the soil, with a sufficiently high degree of transformation of individual odd n-alkanes. The proportion of average molecular weight homologues ∑C22–C25 did not exceed 8% of the sum of n-alkanes. In the microbial community, heterotrophic bacteria dominated among the ecological-trophic groups of microorganisms (unicellular bacteria, actinomycetes, micromycetes), in their composition the proportion of oil-oxidizing bacteria was 9.1–39.3%. The process of destruction of petroleum HC was accompanied by the formation of a wide range of volatile organic compounds. It is shown that the quantitative and qualitative composition of oil components in the surface horizon of soils is determined by two processes — vertical migration and transformation of hydrocarbons, which compensate for the accumulation of oil.