[sicophiliac]

Ok in that case wouldnt under the sea drilling be impossible too ? since there is thousands of tons of weight in water over the crust to push and buckle things and destroy the oil pockets ? I think if all the ice were to dissapear from the Antarctic overnight you could definatly find SOME oil there.. who knows how much but its a continent something like the size of North America. Most likely wed be able to do offshore drilling down there.. much much easier then going through thousands of feet of ice and dealing with the extreme frigid cold on the main land.

[Michael_Layden]

Northsea, Gulf of Mexico, Alaska etc bought us 3 decades after the shock of the Oil crisis. What did we do with the time? SUVs, Urban Sprawl,5,000- !0,000 Miles airfreighted Strawberrries, Flowers, Sea food.
The problem isn't lack of oil, doesn't matter where a few billion barrels are hidden on the planet we will eventually find them and waste them as well as we've done the first trillion barrels.
Unfortunately the lag time to bring on Antartic oil (even if it is there) would be way to long to meet the shortfall in the short to medium term. Sitting on our apathetic arses for 3 decades is the problem. Every kid knows the phrase "you snooze you lose".

[Bas]

Well, the Antartic, could prove the real strategic reserve for the whole world, not for one nation to be able to wage war.

I'd say give the antartic free for looking what is actually there, NOW!

[nth]

Now we are talking.
Yes, peak oil will not be prolonged by antarctica's oil.
Yes, there is oil in antarctica and yes, we can get the oil out, but it will be expensive.

[Sunspot]

Sigh...To repeat, I'm quite sure it was Deffeyes who said there is little liklihood of significant oil deposits in Antartica. The primary reason HE GIVES is the "pounding" of the underlying strata by repeated glaciation.
Ever been in an earthquake?? The ground is not solid, it is plastic, technically. Pile two or three miles of ice on top, over an entire continent, and you're going to press down pretty hard on that land. Doesn't that make sense? If an elephant sat on your chest, you'd feel considerable pressure, don't you think??
The opinion of Kenneth Deffeyes holds much more weight than anyone on this website. I know at this point I'm supposed to provide a specific reference, but I don't have the time to track it down.
Oh, and Deffeyes is also tho person who describes the "Oil Window", 7500 ft. to 15,000 ft. Below that it turns to gas. And yes, it's not exactly the same everywhere on the planet, maybe you can still get oil somewhere deeper than that, but generally it will turn to gas. Read "Hubbert's Peak"!

[nth]

Sigh...To repeat, I'm quite sure it was Deffeyes who said there is little liklihood of significant oil deposits in Antartica. The primary reason HE GIVES is the "pounding" of the underlying strata by repeated glaciation.
Ever been in an earthquake?? The ground is not solid, it is plastic, technically. Pile two or three miles of ice on top, over an entire continent, and you're going to press down pretty hard on that land. Doesn't that make sense? If an elephant sat on your chest, you'd feel considerable pressure, don't you think??
The opinion of Kenneth Deffeyes holds much more weight than anyone on this website. I know at this point I'm supposed to provide a specific reference, but I don't have the time to track it down.
Oh, and Deffeyes is also tho person who describes the "Oil Window", 7500 ft. to 15,000 ft. Below that it turns to gas. And yes, it's not exactly the same everywhere on the planet, maybe you can still get oil somewhere deeper than that, but generally it will turn to gas. Read "Hubbert's Peak"!

You must've misread!
I have read Deffeyes books. In fact, tell me which book you are refering to and I will look it up.
Also, I edited my reply to you and added 10km to 45km. I wasn't talking about feets. Just to make it clear.

Anyone who deals with oil knows there is oil over 15k feet deep.
Oil companies will drill upto 7km deep looking for oil. At the minimum before abandoning dry wells, they will drill to 2km deep.

Also, high pressure of natural gas will produce oil and not the other way around.

And as for glacier pressuring, bologne! There are lakes under the ice! Why are they not pushed dry?

And from my readings of Deffeyes, I don't remember him saying no oil in Antarctica. I know both him and Campbell just thinks it is crazy for people to think they can get oil from the extremes of the Earth like deep sea and others. To them, those oil costs a lot of money and so goes "Cheap Oil" but they totally underestimated the resilience of the economy and how we are surviving on $50 oil just fine. No economists dared to say this 5 years ago, so it is not their fault as they are not economists.

[Cyrus]

I believe there is oil in Anarctica, but, not nearly enough to even make a dent in the problem at nigh.

[rockdoc123]

OK I guess someone has to dispell some misconceptions:

To repeat, I'm quite sure it was Deffeyes who said there is little liklihood of significant oil deposits in Antartica. The primary reason HE GIVES is the "pounding" of the underlying strata by repeated glaciation.
Ever been in an earthquake?? The ground is not solid, it is plastic, technically. Pile two or three miles of ice on top, over an entire continent, and you're going to press down pretty hard on that land. Doesn't that make sense? If an elephant sat on your chest, you'd feel considerable pressure, don't you think??

Although I have much respect for Deffeyes I suspect you have taken considerable liberty in translating what he is saying. First of all with respect to continued pounding....do you think the ice is jumping up and down?....no it is moving under it's own weight at very slow rates (actual quite fast compared to geologic time). The weight of 2km of ice is much less than 2 km of rock....just think a 1 cubic foot chunk of ice wieghs some where around 40 lbs....ever tried to lift a 1 cubic foot chunk of limestone? We find oil all the time a depths well below 2km...this much burial is significant but cannot possibly be used as an argument against there being oil in Antarctica. Using an earthquake as an analog is at best bizarre as the mechanics have no bearing on what happens below an ice sheet. Also I need to point you to the evidence which has come from plant fossils found in the exposed uplifted bedrock in Antartica which suggest that parts of Antarctica were completely free of ice 2 million years ago. So it might not have been covered for all that long. As an analog the Arctic has only in the last million years become ice free for parts of the year after the Pleistocene glaciation.....this is where there is considerable oil found....ie. Prudhoe Bay etc.

Oh, and Deffeyes is also tho person who describes the "Oil Window", 7500 ft. to 15,000 ft. Below that it turns to gas. And yes, it's not exactly the same everywhere on the planet, maybe you can still get oil somewhere deeper than that, but generally it will turn to gas. Read "Hubbert's Peak

Note that the deepest oil production in the US comes from 23,900 feet or there abouts. The depth of the oil and gas window are dependent on three intergral elements....the type of kerogen present in the source rock, the temperature the source rock is exposed too and the time that the source rock is exposed to that temperature. Geothermal gradients vary around the world....in cratonic areas such as central US basins it can be as low as 10 degrees C per 100 km whereas in areas such as the East African Rift basins it can be as high locally as 110 degrees C per 100 km. Also basins have variable burial histories....some are buried and never uplifted...some are buried and uplifted once and some are buried and uplifted in a number of cycles. This creates quite a distribution of depths for oil and gas windows. In cool basins the oil window can be quite broad in hot basins it can be quite narrow.

Also, high pressure of natural gas will produce oil and not the other way around.

Ouch....this is one that I don't even remember first year geology students getting wrong. As a primer gas is formed mostly from late metagenesis of organic material. Source rocks first form immature oil which is further transformed to mature oil which is then cracked to form condensate which is further cracked to form natural gas. There is a lesser amount of gas that is formed biogenically from the very early diagensis of organic material.....there are a number of smaller fields formed in this manner but I can't remember one that could be classified as a giant.

In terms of my own views on Antarctica and its hydrocarbon possibilities I think that it is quite likely there is some there but how much is the big question. If you look at how Pangea split up the Northern side of Antarctica would have linked back in with the southern part of South America and the southern tip of Africa. Neither of these places have huge oil deposits but that is definitely not for lack of source rock which is well documented off both coastlines by the deep sea drilling project and the minor amount of oil drilling that has occurred. As well the west coast of India and Antarctica were also once joined...and there is considerable hydrocarbons off the coast of India (Bombay High etc.). The real key I think is that it is very likely the Cretaceous source rocks responsible for much of the vast oil deposits offshore West Africa and Brazil are present here as well. The issue becomes as to how deeply they have been buried. In most offshore areas we find that a long lived outflow of Tertiary sediments into deltas that buried the Cretaceous source rocks inot the oil window is necessary......if there is evidence for this in Antarctica it is below ice currently. Another worrisome issue is that most of the uplifted rocks in the major mountain range that crosses the western half of Antarctica are comprised of highly metamorphosed units. This of course does not mean that the foreland is not an area where there are unmetamorphosed sediments (ie. similar to Western Canada, Oman etc.) but again if they are there they are below ice now. So basically all the key questions go unanswered. The treaty which prevents oil and mineral extraction from Antarctica I believe is active until 2048 which gives ample time for geoscientists to probe beneath the ice and around its edges to get a better idea of what is there. If we have already peaked worldwide it just might be too late to have any affect on the outcome.

[Sunspot]

re: oil window
"Hubbert's Peak" page 8:
...there is an "oil window" that depends on subsurface temperatures. The rule of thumb says that temperatures 7,500 feet down are hot enough to "crack" organic rich sediments into oil molecules. However, beyond 15,000 ft the rocks are so hot that the oil molecules are further cracked into natural gas. The range from 7,500 ft to 15,000 ft is called the "oil window".If you drill deeper than 15,000 ft, you can find natural gas but little oil."
Straight from the man, Mr. Deffeyes.
Note that he leaves open room for exceptions to these numbers - they aren't set in stone - but this is the general picture. According to someone who has participated in the oil industry and studied the subject his whole life.
Haven't come across the Antarctic reference, like I said, maybe it wasn't from Deffeyes. I just threw out something I know I read somewhere from what I consider to be a reliable source.
The effects on the substrata of repeated glaciation are over the last 100 million years or so. And if you still think that a three mile thick layer of ice doesn't push down on the land then you must think ice is made of helium.

[rockdoc123]

...there is an "oil window" that depends on subsurface temperatures. The rule of thumb says that temperatures 7,500 feet down are hot enough to "crack" organic rich sediments into oil molecules. However, beyond 15,000 ft the rocks are so hot that the oil molecules are further cracked into natural gas. The range from 7,500 ft to 15,000 ft is called the "oil window".If you drill deeper than 15,000 ft, you can find natural gas but little oil."
Straight from the man, Mr. Deffeyes.
Note that he leaves open room for exceptions to these numbers - they aren't set in stone - but this is the general picture. According to someone who has participated in the oil industry and studied the subject his whole life.

well first of all to put this in perspective Hubberts main contributions were in the fields of structural geology and pore pressure dynamics and more importantly this was accomplished in the fifties and early sixties. The current understanding of oil and gas formed did not really start until the early eighties with the work of people like the Teichmuellers, Middleton, Waples, Tissot and Welte. All ideas have changed from Hubberts perspective so quoting him is kind of pointless.

As for Deffeyes all you know is he was a professor at a university and that he worked at Shell for years...I believe he actually worked for Hubbert. That means very little......I know literally hundreds of very intelligent well published very experienced geologists who know bugger all about organic geochemistry....it simply isn't their field.

So rule of thumb be careful about believing everything you read. If you are really interested in understanding all of this there is a few classic papers by Doug Waples and a very good book that covers the basics of petroleum generation by Tissot and Welte......a brief search should get you the references.

[nth]

re: oil window
"Hubbert's Peak" page 8:
...there is an "oil window" that depends on subsurface temperatures. The rule of thumb says that temperatures 7,500 feet down are hot enough to "crack" organic rich sediments into oil molecules. However, beyond 15,000 ft the rocks are so hot that the oil molecules are further cracked into natural gas. The range from 7,500 ft to 15,000 ft is called the "oil window".If you drill deeper than 15,000 ft, you can find natural gas but little oil."
Straight from the man, Mr. Deffeyes.
Note that he leaves open room for exceptions to these numbers - they aren't set in stone - but this is the general picture. According to someone who has participated in the oil industry and studied the subject his whole life.
Haven't come across the Antarctic reference, like I said, maybe it wasn't from Deffeyes. I just threw out something I know I read somewhere from what I consider to be a reliable source.
The effects on the substrata of repeated glaciation are over the last 100 million years or so. And if you still think that a three mile thick layer of ice doesn't push down on the land then you must think ice is made of helium.

Yup, that is correct. He wrote that. I am speechless. There are plenty of oil being drilled over 15k ft.

Regarding ice sheets, as I said there are lakes. If those lakes are squeezed dry, then I will believe your theory.

[rockdoc123]

Haven't come across the Antarctic reference, like I said, maybe it wasn't from Deffeyes. I just threw out something I know I read somewhere from what I consider to be a reliable source.
The effects on the substrata of repeated glaciation are over the last 100 million years or so. And if you still think that a three mile thick layer of ice doesn't push down on the land then you must think ice is made of helium.

good lord...take a geology course before you begin spouting rhetoric.

100 Million years??? well lets see that puts us back pretty close to the end mid-Cretaceous times at which time Antartica was partly exposed semi-tropical land area and partly covered by the great Cretaceous seaways. In fact its location put it not that far south of the equator. No in fact Antartic glaciation started in the Oligocene (34 MYa). The point I made which you chose to ignore is that some of the paleontologic evidence coming out of the joint scientific studies happening on Antarctica illustrate plant fossils which indicate reasonably temperate climates (they are ferns) in at least part of Antartica as little as 3 million years ago. They suggest that the ice thickness we see now may in fact be something that has happened only in the last few million years.

Irrespective of how long the ice has been there what I said was that 2 km of ice is much lighter than 2 km of rock (heres a experiment go to the fridge pull out an ice cube hold in one hand then walk outside pick up rock of same size and hold in other hand....which is heavier?). Oil is found at depths well over 3 km when it is covered in rock so why should ice be any worse? In actual fact with the cold thermal insulating layer there is a good chance that the geothermal gradient in Antartica is somewhat lower than other cratonic areas suggesting the oil window could even be lower. If ice is such a bad thing then how do you explain the tens of billions of barrels in the Arctic?

By the way quoting Hubbert and Deffeynes on oil maturation is a bit like quoting Tom Cruise on psychiatry....they all like to talk about it but their background knowledge in the specific subject is questionable.

[AirlinePilot]

rockdoc,

I am curious what others in your field say about potential oil in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. What's your estimate of finding significant fields there? Where else can i go to research this topic?

[rockdoc123]

The first place to start is the USGS website. In 2002 they did an update of their worldwide resource assessment...another is due soon.
The Arctic story is fairly well known....USGS site has a lot of good up to date info on Alaska. The GSC (Canada) has info regarding the Canadian side of the Beaufort as well as Arctic Islands. Remember that both the USGS and GSC resource estimates are statistical and make a number of assumptions that are not always good...especially for underexplored basins.

[rockdoc123]

actually Campbell says something pretty similar, that the weight of the current icecaps turns liquid petroleum to gas

OK .....again I have to say that Colin Campbell is a respected scientist....however statements like that...if he made it is completely ridiculous. Why is that ....basically because we know so little about the subsurface geology of Antartica. To make that sort of claim with any credance whatsoever first of all you would have to know defacto what the source rock is....could be upper Cretaceous but we don't know for sure because we haven't been able to sample it. Also you would have to know how deep that source rock is....guess what...we don't know...and dollars to doughnuts it is deeper in places and shallower in others. Next up on the stupid comment list is exactly what I was saying before...the thickness of ice is no greater than thicknesses of rock we see sitting on top of oil deposits...and the density of ice is less than rock. Finally the way that oil forms is pretty much agreed upon now by the geochemists (again please read Doug Waples papers) as being time and temperature dependent. There are at least two companies selling software that allows you to model this using similar but slightly different algorithms and approachs. This is good science....the comment you attribute to C. Campbell is bad science. Something you need to consider is that the heat transfer through ice is much different than rock and this is going to affect the equation immensely.
Bottom line is if the source rock (what is it and how deep is it?) is already in the oil window and generating oil and you load up a thick ice cap on it...well pretty much a given that it will go into the gas window. That being said if someone out there can come up with some really good remote viewing on the sub-ice and subsurface geology of Antarctica it would probably prove or disprove Campbells theorem. Edgar Cayce afficiendados anywhere?
Hey Colin if you log in here .....willing to debate this one with you...this is one of my fields of expertise and I thought better of you.

[nth]

I don't get it.
I am no geologists, but I guess water existing under the ice cap means nothing?

Also, where did Campbell state such a claim? In his book? Tell me, so I can look it up. Don't need to give me an exact page.

[eric_b]

(...)
Irrespective of how long the ice has been there what I said was that 2 km of ice is much lighter than 2 km of rock (heres a experiment go to the fridge pull out an ice cube hold in one hand then walk outside pick up rock of same size and hold in other hand....which is heavier?). Oil is found at depths well over 3 km when it is covered in rock so why should ice be any worse? In actual fact with the cold thermal insulating layer there is a good chance that the geothermal gradient in Antartica is somewhat lower than other cratonic areas suggesting the oil window could even be lower. If ice is such a bad thing then how do you explain the tens of billions of barrels in the Arctic?

This entire topic was kicked around months ago in another thread.

Problem with the Antarctic ice cap is it's not a static thing. All the ice is flowing, with
rates that vary with depth. Anywhere from feet to 10's of meters a year. The
ice tends to drain towards 'ice streams' which can flow 100's of meters per year.
This fact alone would make any kind of drilling difficult to impossible. I imagine
this would shear off and destroy most of those mosquito prick bore holes quick.
The Antarctic continent is essentially a giant glacier draining radially toards the Ocean.

Most Arctic drilling is not done on top of glaciers 100's of meters thick - which
is what Antarctic drilling would amount to.

You also underestimate the extreme climate - far and away the coldest and driest
anywhere on the planet. Sea ice, which builds and surrounds the continent for
half the year makes it impossible to reach by boat during the Winter. Add in the
savage westerlies which circle Antarctica (there's no land between ~45-60 south
to slow these winds down) and I think it's safe to say you're not going to see
any coastal drilling off the south pole either.

[rockdoc123]

eric-b

Actually all of my arguments have to do with whether there is likely to be oil in Antarctica or not....I never discussed whether it would be economically feasible... in fact did not mention my opinion one way or the other on technical aspects of extraction or economics.

That being said thirty years ago noone would have imagined we could do any of the following:
- drill exploration wells in water depths greater than 2800m
- produce hydrocarbons from water depths nearing 2000m
- produce gas off of Canada's east coast at Hybernia which is smack dab in the middle of "ice berg alley"
- drill horizontal multi-lateral reach wells to distances in excess of several km. and actually know to within a few inches where they are at any given time
- be able to produce hydrocarbons in the West Shetlands area due to the huge storms that are prevelant

The arguments you make are not much different in tone than the ones that were made about the Beaufort Sea and Canadian Arctic in the late sixties....most industry folk thought it would be undoeable. My point being that the oil industry is an amazing place for innovative thinking, obviously there are limits but I would hesitate to anything is impossible. Certainly in the near term noone is going to be interested in exploring in the Antarctic....oil prices would have to go a lot higher given the increasing costs for drill ships etc.

[dragonfly]

I wonder, does anyone know how well explored Antarctica is, and if anyone knows how much oil if any is down there? I've heard that it's chock full of minerals, and wondering if oil would be there too.

I realize that even if there was oil, its remote location not to mention harsh environment, as well as the UN sanctions on extraction in Antarctica of any resource make it unlikely to alleviate any oil shortage.

Perhaps ironically global warming would help. Sure we flood major coastal cities, but hey, at least we'll have access to all that wonderful oil once those ice sheets break off and melt. I'm sure everyone would agree that's a price worth paying.