[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]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sunspot', 'S')igh...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"!

[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:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')o 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??

[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]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..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.

[nth]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sunspot', 'r')e: 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]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')aven'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.

[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]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'a')ctually Campbell says something pretty similar, that the weight of the current icecaps turns liquid petroleum to gas

[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]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')
(...)
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?

[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.