Of course I was mixing with a more academic crowd. That is what I tend to do. It is much more comfortable, but it does, often, have me forgetting that the others are out there.
Hmm. More oil being made? Perhaps. As I recall from lectures many years ago, all it takes to make coal or oil is a very hot, damp, lush climate with lots and lots of plant life growing, dying, and new growth over it so fast that there are huge layers of organic matter piling up, then something changes and that gets covered with mud or sand, and then more and more layers of mud/sand, till finally the pile is thick enough that the mud and sand turn to rock and the organic matter gets converted to oil or coal. Easy process, *if* everything happens just so. I don't know if there is anyplace currently developing that much organic matter (Amazon Rain Forest???), nor do I know if they will get buried (perhaps enough Global Warming to completely melt the ice caps and flood some basins, so that sand, mud, and other ocean-floor ooze covers the basins?), but if they do we have only to wait till they have been buried long enough to convert, the oil percolates upwards till it gets trapped in a fold of rock that is impermeable, then sufficent erosion happens that said fold is close enough to the surface to access with drills. Could all happen fairly quickly, say 50 to 100 million years. No doubt his family will be willing to wait that long. ;-)
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Date: 2010-04-05 08:33 am (UTC)Hmm. More oil being made? Perhaps. As I recall from lectures many years ago, all it takes to make coal or oil is a very hot, damp, lush climate with lots and lots of plant life growing, dying, and new growth over it so fast that there are huge layers of organic matter piling up, then something changes and that gets covered with mud or sand, and then more and more layers of mud/sand, till finally the pile is thick enough that the mud and sand turn to rock and the organic matter gets converted to oil or coal. Easy process, *if* everything happens just so. I don't know if there is anyplace currently developing that much organic matter (Amazon Rain Forest???), nor do I know if they will get buried (perhaps enough Global Warming to completely melt the ice caps and flood some basins, so that sand, mud, and other ocean-floor ooze covers the basins?), but if they do we have only to wait till they have been buried long enough to convert, the oil percolates upwards till it gets trapped in a fold of rock that is impermeable, then sufficent erosion happens that said fold is close enough to the surface to access with drills. Could all happen fairly quickly, say 50 to 100 million years. No doubt his family will be willing to wait that long. ;-)