From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 23:48:24 MST
Ah, my extropian droogies. Let us viddy this paper that has the possibility
of tolchoking our OPEC prestoopniks. (Why I am typing in teen-speak, I have
no idea, since this is a serious article.) It is a horrorshow of an article
that sends the red krovy, all rising in me vains. Ok, enuf Clockwork Orange
shit. This article seems to kick the Hubert's Peak predictions regarding
petroleum, in the cajones. Or at the least, forstalls a petroleum drought for
a few years. Read on.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030331045435.htm
Tens Of Billions Of Additional Barrels Of Oil Remain To Be Tapped Miles Below
Gulf Of Mexico, Cornell Geologist Says
NEW ORLEANS -- U.S. reliance on foreign oil production could be reduced by
chemically mapping the subsurface streams of hydrocarbons, amounting to tens
of
billions of barrels, hidden well below the Gulf of Mexico, says a Cornell
University geologist.
These untapped oil and gas reserves can be found by matching hydrocarbon
chemical signatures with geologic models for stratigraphic layers under the
sea
floor, says Lawrence M. Cathles, a professor of chemical geology at Cornell
in
Ithaca, N.Y. "The undiscovered gas and oil potential of the Gulf of Mexico is
very large,"says Cathles. "We have produced only a small fraction, and the
deep-water
potential for finding more there is big. In terms of potential, it is bigger
than the North Sea. It's about a big a deal as there is."
Cathles will present his findings in a talk, "Massive Hydrocarbon Venting
with
Minor, Constantly Replenished (Flow-Through) Retention in a 100 x 200 km Area
Offshore Louisiana Gulf of Mexico," at the 225th national meeting of the
American Chemical Society in New Orleans at 1:30 p.m. CST on March 27.
The northern Gulf of Mexico basin is one of the world's most active areas of
hydrocarbon exploration. A study of an area of about 9,500 square miles,
found
that hydrocarbons currently are being naturally generated from strata
deposited
during the Tertiary and Jurassic periods, miles below the sea floor.
Hydrocarbons are leaking through natural vents at hundreds of locations, and
these vent sites have been visited and studied by Cathles and other
researchers
using small submarines. What makes this area offshore of Louisiana important
is
the presence of two types of hydrocarbon deep below the gulf floor: the
deeper,
early-maturing Jurassic and the later-maturing Tertiary. Each has a
distinctive
chemistry. As these sources mature, the hydrocarbons migrate upward toward
the
surface through what can be thought of as a myriad of small streams and
ponds,
much like a natural water system. Just how much liquid hydrocarbon is
retained
within this subsurface network is a matter of crucial interest, Cathles says.
More than 70 percent of the hydrocarbons that have been naturally generated
have
made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds and
vented
into the ocean. The hydrocarbons are digested by bacteria, which then become
food for the gulf's marine life. The earlier-generated, sulfur-rich,
carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons are replaced by the shallower,
later-generated, shale-sourced Tertiary hydrocarbons which fill the producing
reservoirs in the northern part of the study area. This displacement of
Jurassic
by Tertiary oil provides geologists with a measure of the remaining untapped
oil
and gas below the gulf's floor.
The hydrocarbons hidden within the subsurface ponds and streams are about 8
to
10 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's total hydrocarbons. In the study area this
represents about 60 billion barrels of oil and 370 trillion cubic feet of gas
and is the hydrocarbon that could be extracted, Cathles says. (The remaining
hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay stored in the source strata.)
Cathles says that the telltale chemistry of the hydrocarbons reflects the
streams and ponds through which they migrated, and thus could point to the
ponds
that remain to be discovered and produced.
Ultimately he hopes that looking at the hydrocarbon chemistry in this new way
could provide geologists with accurate information on the presence and size
of the deeper reservoirs. He says: "By combining chemical data from currently
producing reservoirs with seismic images of the subsurface using computer
migration models, drilling for new deep reservoirs can be facilitated."
Funding for the research was provided by the Gas Research Institute in a
joint
project with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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