OIL AND GAS ACCUMULATION

For most of their history, oil and natural gas were thought of as minerals, substances formed out of nonliving rock, just as gold, sulfur, and salt were part of the rock. There was little reason to assume otherwise. Although petroleum smelled like something that had died, and although natural gas burned like swamp gas, most of the gas and oil escaping from the ground seemed to come from solid rock deep beneath the surface, where, as everyone knew, nothing lived. Beginning two centuries ago, however, the geologic insights of Hutton, Lyell and other scientists showed that the rocks in which oil was found were once loose sediment piling up in shallow coastal waters where fish and algae and plankton and corals lived. Now it seemed possible that oil and gas had something to do with the decay of dead organisms, just as coal, with its leaf and stem imprints, seemed to be the fossilized remains of swamp plants. Later advances in microscopy revealed that oil-producing and oil-bearing rocks often contain fossilized creatures too small to be seen with the unaided eye. Chemists discovered that the carbon-hydrogen ratios in petroleum are much like those in marine organisms and that certain complex molecules are found in petroleum that are otherwise known to occur only in living cells. But it was the fact that most source rocks could be shown to have originated in an environment rich with life that clinched the organic theory of the origin of petroleum. Unanswered questions about the occurrence of petroleum remain, and men of science still debate the evidence of its organic origin. Because of the weight of that evidence, however, few scientist doubt that most petroleum originates in the life and death of living things.

ORIGIN Chemical Factors Petroleum is both simple and complex. It is composed almost entirely of carbon and hydrogen; but the number of ways that carbon and hydrogen can combine is astronomical, and most petroleum contains hundreds or different kinds of hydrocarbons. It occurs in forms as diverse as thick black asphalt or pitch, oily black heavy crude, clear yellow light crude, and petroleum gas. These variations are due mainly to differences in molecular weight, that is, the sizes of the molecules, and the types of impurities. Despite the differences in molecular weights, however, the proportions of carbon and hydrogen do not vary appreciably among the different varieties of petroleum; carbon comprises 82 to 87 percent and hydrogen 12 to 15 percent.

Petroleum is almost insoluble in pure water and only slightly soluble in salt water or water containing other organic substances. It is lighter than, and therefore floats on, water; but it is often found in an oil-water emulsion, that is, dispersed in small droplets suspended in water. A hydrocarbon molecule is a chain of one or more carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms chemically bound to them. Some petroleum contains hydrocarbon molecules with up to sixty or seventy carbon atoms. At room temperature and pressure, molecules with up to four carbon atoms occur as gases; molecules having five to fifteen carbon atoms are liquids; and heavier molecules occur as solids. Methane, the simplest hydrocarbon, has the chemical formula CH4. Four is the maximum number of hydrogen atoms that can attach to a single carbon atom; thus methane is classified as a saturated hydrocarbon, a paraffin, or alkane. Other paraffins include ethane (C2H6), a chain of two carbon atoms with six hydrogen atoms; butane (C4H10); and octane (C8H18). Unsaturated hydrocarbons also occur naturally in petroleum. The most common of these are the aromatics, compounds based on the distinctive benzene ring (C6H16). Other ring-shaped compounds include the naphthenes or cycloparaffins, wich vary in number of carbon atoms and bonding pattern. Naphthenic crudes produce less fuel and more lubricating oils than paraffinic crudes. The residue left when these crudes are refined is high in semisolid or solid asphaltic wastes; therefore, naphthenic oils are sometimes called asphaltic crudes.

Biological Factors

Petroleum contains solar energy stored as chemical energy. Many steps are involved in the conversion from the simple radiant energy of the sun to the complex molecules of hydrocarbons. Coastal waters, rich with nutrients brought in by rivers and upwelling deep-sea currents, support an elaborate community of organisms ranging from microscopic, single-celled plants and animals to large predatory fish and mammals. Sole of the smallest and simplest of these organisms perform the first capture and conversion of the suns radiant energy. The bulk of the living matter in such biotic communities is in the form of microscopic or nearmicroscopic simple organisms; protozoa (animals) and algae (plants). The algae are photosynthetic; they can synthesize their own food, simple sugars and starches, out of water and carbon dioxide, using the energy of sunlight. Other organisms consume the algae and convert the simple carbohydrates into more complex foods, such as proteins and fats; these are eaten by still larger organisms.

Each level of the food chain contributes waste products, and every organism that is not eaten eventually dies. In recycling this organic material, and important role is played by a diversity of bacteria. The two principal types are those that lived in aerobic (oxygenated) environments and derive their energy by oxidizing organic matter and those that live in anaerobic (reducing) environments by taking the oxygen from dissolved sulfates and organic fatty acids to produce sulfides (such as hydrogen sulfide) and hydrocarbons. Although aerobic decay liberates certain hydrocarbons that some small organisms accumulate within their bodies, the anaerobics are more important in the formation of oil. If the process of aerobic decomposition continues indefinitely, all organic matter, including hydrocarbons, is converted into heat, water, and carbon dioxide, the raw materials that photosynthetic plants use to make their carbohydrate food. For an accumulation of petroleum to be formed, the supply of oxygen must be cut off. Most areas along the coast are well aerated by circulation, wind and wave actions. In some areas, however, aeration is hindered by physical barriers such as reefs or shoals; and in deeper waters far offshore, the water below a certain depth is similarly depleted of oxygen. Here organic waste materials and dead organisms can sink to the bottom and be preserved in an anaerobic environment instead of being decomposed by oxidizing bacteria. The accumulation and compaction of impermeable clay along with the organic matter help seal it off from dissolved oxygen. Thus isolated, it becomes the raw material that is transformed into petroleum by the heat and pressure of deeper burial. Even in areas with appreciable circulation and oxygenation, organic debris can accumulate so fast that it is quickly buried beyond the reach of aerobic organisms. Locations where this is likely to occur include salt marshes, tidal lagoons, river deltas, and parts of the continental shelf. Epeiric seas such as those that covered much of North America during the Permian and other periods offered broad stretches of warm, shallow water where, unstirred by ocean currents and tides, abundant organic debris could accumulate in an anaerobic environment.

Physical Factors

The clay that settles out of suspension in quiet waters is buried and transformed into shale. Organic matter trapped within is subjected to pressure that increases at slightly less than the geostatic pressure gradient, which is about 1 pound per square inch (psi) per foot or depth. The temperature increases gradually, both from compression and by heating from the earths interior. (Below a thin zone that is affected by climate, the temperature rises about 1.5 F for every 100 feet of depth.)

At 120 to 150F, certain chemical reactions that ordinarily proceed very slowly begin to occur much more quickly. The organic matter trapped within the rock begins to change. Long-chain molecules are broken into shorter chains; other molecules are reformed, gaining or losing hydrogen; and some short-chain hydrocarbons are combined into longer chains and rings. The net result is that solid hydrocarbons are converted into liquid and gas hydrocarbons. Thus the energy of the sun, converted to chemical energy by plants, redistributed among all the creatures of the food chain, and preserved by burial, is transformed into petroleum. The petroleum window - the set of conditions under which petroleum will form - includes temperatures between the extremes of 100F and 350F. The higher the temperature, the grater is the proportion of gas.