GEOL 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: La Brea Tar Pits, Enhanced Oil Recovery, Coalbed Methane
Document Summary
Emissions: population growth = carbon consumption, 85% of us is fossil carbon. Growing energy demand is projected: m. king hubbert asses the vitality by looking at history of what it"s pumping out (oil fields, entire oil fields. How oil comes about: oil seep, most hydrocarbon oozes up to surface, oil refinery, oil wells. Organic materials needs to be buried: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, gases are called volatiles. Petroleum formation special circumstances: organic rich source rock, rapid burial to inhibit oxidation, pressure and temperature constraints, migration to permeable reservoir rock, trapped by impermeable trap rock, most hydrocarbon ever formed has escaped. Plankton: most oil and gas start life as microscopic plants and animals that live in the ocean. Hydrocarbons (oil/gas: most of the maturation process occurs between 50 and 100 c (120 - 210 f, at higher temperatures the hydrocarbon converts to methane gas.
