Fushun oil shale(FOS) was subjected to thermal dissolution(TD) under different conditions. The results show that the optimal solvent, temperature, time, and ratio of solvent to FOS are ethanol, 300 °C, 2 h, and 5 ml·g-1,respectively and the corresponding yield of the soluble portion(SP) is 32.2%(daf), which is much higher than the oil content of FOS(ca. 6%), suggesting that TD in ethanol is an excellent way to extract organics from FOS.According to 3 direct analyses, aliphatic moieties in FOS are the most abundant followed by C\\O-containing moieties and each cluster in FOS has 3 conjugated aromatic rings on average with fewer substituents. According to the analysis with a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, alkanes are predominant in all the SPs. A number of alkenes were identified in the SPs from the TD, while none of the alkenes were detected in acetone-SP obtained at room temperature, implying that the TD can destroy the π-π and intertwining interactions between alkenes and macromolecular structures in FOS. Moreover, a small amount of alkyl-substituted phenols and alkoxysubstituted phenols were detected in ethanol-SP from the TD, which could be the products from ethanolyzing the macromolecular moiety of FOS.