A petroleum seep is a place where natural liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons escape to the Earth's atmosphere and surface, normally under low pressure or flow. Seeps generally occur above either terrestrial or offshore petroleum accumulation structures. [1] [ failed verification ] The hydrocarbons may escape along geological layers, or across them through fractures and fissures in the rock, or directly from an outcrop of oil-bearing rock.
Petroleum seeps are quite common in many areas of the world, and have been exploited by mankind since paleolithic times. A comprehensive compendium of seeps around the world was published in 2022. [2] Natural products associated with seeps include bitumen, pitch, asphalt and tar. In locations where seeps of natural gas are sufficiently large, natural "eternal flames" often persist. The occurrence of surface petroleum was often included in location names that developed; these locations are also associated with early oil and gas exploitation as well as scientific and technological developments, which have grown into the petroleum industry.
The exploitation of bituminous rocks and natural seep deposits dates back to paleolithic times. The earliest known use of bitumen (natural asphalt) was by Neanderthals some 70,000 years ago, with bitumen adhered to ancient tools found at Neanderthal sites in Syria. [3]
After the arrival of Homo sapiens, humans used bitumen for construction of buildings and waterproofing of reed boats, among other uses. [4] The use of bitumen for waterproofing and as an adhesive dates at least to the fifth millennium BCE in the early Indus community of Mehrgarh where it was used to line the baskets in which they gathered crops. [5] The material was also used as early as the third millennium BCE in statuary, mortaring brick walls, waterproofing baths and drains, in stair treads, and for shipbuilding. According to Herodotus, and confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, more than four thousand years ago natural asphalt was employed in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon; there were oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), as well as a pitch spring on Zacynthus (Ionian islands, Greece). [6] Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus [ citation needed ], one of the tributaries of the Euphrates.
In ancient times, bitumen was primarily a Mesopotamian commodity used by the Sumerians and Babylonians, although it was also found in the Levant and Persia. Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the area was littered with hundreds of pure bitumen seepages.[ citation needed ] The Mesopotamians used the bitumen for waterproofing boats and buildings. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. In ancient Egypt, the use of bitumen was important in creating Egyptian mummies—in fact, the word mummy is derived from the Arab word mūmiyyah, which means bitumen. [4] Oil from seeps was exploited in the Roman province of Dacia, now in Romania, where it was called picula.
In East Asia these locations were known in China, where the earliest known drilled oil wells date to 347 CE or earlier. [7] The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as burning water in Japan in the 7th century. [6] In his book Dream Pool Essays written in 1088, the polymathic scientist and statesman Shen Kuo of the Song dynasty coined the word 石油 (Shíyóu, literally "rock oil") for petroleum, which remains the term used in contemporary Chinese.
In southwest Asia the first streets of 8th century Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from natural seep fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Distillation of petroleum was described by the Persian alchemist, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes). [8] [ unreliable source ] There was production of chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic (al-ambiq), [9] [ incomplete short citation ] which was mainly used for kerosene lamps. [10] Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century. [6] It has also been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură. [11]
In Europe, petroleum seeps were extensively mined near the Alsace city of Pechelbronn, where the vapor separation process was in use in 1742. [12] In Switzerland c. 1710, the Russian-born Swiss physician and Greek teacher Eyrini d'Eyrinis discovered asphaltum at Val-de-Travers, (Neuchâtel). He established a bitumen mine de la Presta there in 1719 that operated until 1986. [13] [14] [15] [16] Oil sands here were mined from 1745 under the direction of Louis Pierre Ancillon de la Sablonnière, by special appointment of Louis XV. [17] The Pechelbronn oil field was active until 1970, and was the birthplace of companies like Antar and Schlumberger. In 1745 under the Empress Elisabeth of Russia the first oil well and refinery were built in Ukhta by Fiodor Priadunov. Through the process of distillation of the "rock oil" (petroleum) he received a kerosene-like substance, which was used in oil lamps by Russian churches and monasteries (though households still relied on candles). [18]
The earliest mention of petroleum seeps in the Americas occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh's account of the Pitch Lake on Trinidad in 1595. Thirty-seven years later, the account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, to the oil springs of New York was published in Sagard's Histoire du Canada. In North America, the early European fur traders found Canadian First Nations using bitumen from the vast Athabasca oil sands to waterproof their birch bark canoes. [19] A Swedish scientist, Peter Kalm, in his 1753 work Travels into North America, showed on a map the oil springs of Pennsylvania. [6]
In 1769 the Portolà expedition, a group of Spanish explorers led by Gaspar de Portolà, made the first written record of the tar pits in California. Father Juan Crespí wrote, "While crossing the basin the scouts reported having seen some geysers of tar issuing from the ground like springs; it boils up molten, and the water runs to one side and the tar to the other. The scouts reported that they had come across many of these springs and had seen large swamps of them, enough, they said, to caulk many vessels. We were not so lucky ourselves as to see these tar geysers, much though we wished it; as it was some distance out of the way we were to take, the Governor [Portola] did not want us to go past them. We christened them Los Volcanes de Brea [the Tar Volcanoes]." [20]
During the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, oil seepages in Europe were exploited everywhere with the digging, and later drilling, of wells near to their occurrences and the discovery of numerous small oil fields such as in Italy. [21] [22]
The modern history of petroleum exploitation, in relation to extraction from seeps, began in the 19th century with the refining of kerosene from crude oil as early as 1823, and the process of refining kerosene from coal by Nova Scotian Abraham Pineo Gesner in 1846. It was only after Ignacy Łukasiewicz had improved Gesner's method to develop a means of refining kerosene from the more readily available "rock oil" ("petr-oleum") seeps in 1852 that the first rock oil mine was built near Krosno in central European Galicia (Poland/Ukraine) in 1853. In 1854, Benjamin Silliman, a science professor at Yale University, was the first American to fractionate petroleum by distillation. These discoveries rapidly spread around the world.
The world's first commercial oil well was drilled in Poland in 1853, and the second in nearby Romania in 1857. At around the same time the world's first, but small, oil refineries were opened at Jasło in Poland, with a larger one being opened at Ploiești in Romania shortly after. Romania is the first country in the world to have its crude oil output officially recorded in international statistics, namely 275 tonnes. [23] [24] By the end of the 19th century the Russian Empire, particularly in Azerbaijan, had taken the lead in production. [25]
The first oil "well" in North America was in Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada in 1858, dug by James Miller Williams. The US petroleum industry began with Edwin Drake's drilling of a 69-foot (21 m) oil well in 1859 [26] on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, both named for their petroleum seeps.
Other sources of oil initially associated with petroleum seeps were discovered in Peru's Zorritos District in 1863, in the Dutch East Indies on Sumatra in 1885, in Persia at Masjed Soleiman in 1908, as well as in Venezuela, Mexico, and the province of Alberta, Canada.
By 1910, these too were being developed at an industrial level. Initially these petroleum sources and products were for use in fueling lamps, but with the development of the internal combustion engine, their supply could not meet the increased demand; many of these early traditional sources and "local finds" were soon outpaced by technology and demand.
A petroleum seep occurs as a result of the seal above the reservoir being breached, causing tertiary migration of hydrocarbons towards the surface under the influence of the associated buoyancy force. The seal is breached due to the effects of overpressure adding to the buoyancy force, overcoming the capillary resistance that initially kept the hydrocarbons sealed.
The most common cause of overpressure is the rapid loading of fine-grained sediments preventing water from escaping fast enough to equalise the pressure of the overburden. [27] If burial stops or slows, then excess pressure can equalize at a rate that is dependent on the permeability of the overlying and adjacent rocks. A secondary cause of overpressure is fluid expansion, due to changes in the volume of solid and/or fluid phases. Some examples include: aquathermal pressuring (thermal expansion), clay dehydration reactions (such as anhydrite) and mineral transformation (such as kerogen to oil/gas and excess kerogen).
There are two types of seep that can occur, depending on the degree of overpressure. [28] Capillary failure can occur in moderate overpressure conditions, resulting in widespread but low intensity seepage until the overpressure equalizes and resealing occurs. In some cases, the moderate overpressure cannot be equalized because the pores in the rock are small so the displacement pressure, the pressure required to break the seal, is very high. If the overpressure continues to increase to the point that it overcomes the rock's minimum stress and its tensile strength before overcoming the displacement pressure, then the rock will fracture, causing local and high intensity seepage until the pressure equalizes and the fractures close. [29]
California has several hundred naturally occurring seeps, found in 28 counties across the state. [30] Much of the petroleum discovered in California during the 19th century was from observations of seeps. [31] The world's largest natural oil seepage is Coal Oil Point in the Santa Barbara Channel, California. [32] Three of the better known tar seep locations in California are McKittrick Tar Pits, [33] Carpinteria Tar Pits and the La Brea Tar Pits. [34]
At Kern River Oil Field, there are no currently active seeps. However, oil-stained formations in the outcrops remain from previously active seeps. [32]
Seeps known as the McKittrick Tar Pits occur in the McKittrick Oil Field in western Kern County. Some of the seeps occur in watersheds that drain toward the San Joaquin Valley floor. These seeps were originally mined for asphalt by Native Americans, and in the 1870s larger scale mining was undertaken by means of both open pits and shafts. In 1893, Southern Pacific Railroad constructed a line to Asphalto, two miles from present day McKittrick. Fuel oil for the railroad was highly desired, especially since there are very few coal-bearing formations in California. [35] The field is produced now by conventional oil wells, as well as by steam fracturing.
The oil seeps at McKittrick are located in diatomite formation that has been thrust faulted over the younger sandstone formations. Similarly, in the Upper Ojai Valley in Ventura County, tar seeps are aligned with east–west faulting. In the same area, Sulphur Mountain is named for the hydrogen sulfide-laden springs. The oil fields in the Sulphur Mountain area date from the 1870s. Production was from tunnels dug into the face of a cliff, and produced by gravity drainage. [36]
The petroleum fly ( Helaeomyia petrolei ) is a species of fly that was first described from the La Brea Tar Pits and is found at other California seeps as well. [37] It is highly unusual among insects for its tolerance of crude oil; larvae of this fly live within petroleum seeps where they feed on insects and other arthropods that die after becoming trapped in the oil. [38]
In the Gulf of Mexico, there are more than 600 natural oil seeps that leak between one and five million barrels of oil per year, equivalent to roughly 80,000 to 200,000 tonnes. [39] When a petroleum seep forms underwater it may form a peculiar type of volcano known as an asphalt volcano.
The California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources published a map of offshore oil seeps from Point Aguello (north of Santa Barbara) to Mexico. [40] In addition, they published a brochure describing the seeps. The brochure also discusses the underground blowout at Platform A which caused the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. It also describes accounts from divers, who describe seepage changes after the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. [41]
In Utah, there are natural oil seeps at Rozel Point on the Great Salt Lake. [42] The oil seeps at Rozel Point can be seen when the lake level drops below an elevation of approximately 4,198 feet (1,280 m); if the lake level is higher, the seeps are underwater. The seeps can be found by going to the Golden Spike historical site, and from there, following signs for the Spiral Jetty. Both fresh tar seeps and re-worked tar (tar caught by the waves and thrown up on the rocks) are visible at the site.
The petroleum seeping at Rozel Point is high in sulfur, but has no hydrogen sulfide. [43] This may be related to deposition in a hypersaline lacustrine environment. [44]
Bitumen is an immensely viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American English, the material is commonly referred to as asphalt. Whether found in natural deposits or refined from petroleum, the substance is classed as a pitch. Prior to the 20th century, the term asphaltum was in general use. The word derives from the Ancient Greek word ἄσφαλτος (ásphaltos), which referred to natural bitumen or pitch. The largest natural deposit of bitumen in the world is the Pitch Lake of southwest Trinidad, which is estimated to contain 10 million tons.
The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times; where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent.
Petroleum is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture. It consists mainly of hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The term petroleum refers both to naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil, as well as to petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
Tar pits, sometimes referred to as asphalt pits, are large asphalt deposits. They form in the presence of petroleum, which is created when decayed organic matter is subjected to pressure underground. If this crude oil seeps upward via fractures, conduits, or porous sedimentary rock layers, it may pool up at the surface. The lighter components of the crude oil evaporate into the atmosphere, leaving behind a black, sticky asphalt. Tar pits are often excavated because they contain large fossil collections.
La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Over many centuries, the bones of trapped animals have been preserved. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. La Brea Tar Pits is a registered National Natural Landmark.
Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen.
Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat.
The Pitch Lake is the largest natural deposit of bitumen in the world, estimated to contain 10 million tons. It is located in La Brea in southwest Trinidad, within the Siparia Regional Corporation. The lake covers about 0.405 square kilometres and is reported to be 76.2 metres deep.
Heavy crude oil is highly viscous oil that cannot easily flow from production wells under normal reservoir conditions.
While the local use of oil goes back many centuries, the modern petroleum industry along with its outputs and modern applications are of a recent origin. Petroleum's status as a key component of politics, society, and technology has its roots in the coal and kerosene industry of the late nineteenth century. One of the earliest instances of this is the refining of paraffin from crude oil. Abraham Gesner developed a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale; it burned more cleanly and was cheaper than whale oil. James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage when he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The world's first refineries and modern oil wells were established in the mid-nineteenth century. While petroleum industries developed in several countries during the nineteenth century, the two giants were the United States and the Russian Empire, specifically that part of it that today forms the territory of independent Azerbaijan. Together, these two countries produced 97% of the world's oil over the course of the nineteenth century.
Fred F. Meissner was an American geologist and engineer who contributed to the fields of geology, geophysics, engineering, petroleum engineering, geochemistry, mineralogy, physics, mining, economic geology, and fishing.
The McKittrick Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in western Kern County, California. The town of McKittrick overlies the northeastern portion of the oil field. Recognized as an oil field in the 19th century, but known by Native Americans for thousands of years due to its tar seeps, the field is ranked 19th in California by total ultimate oil recovery, and has had a cumulative production of over 303 million barrels (48,200,000 m3) of oil. The principal operators of the field as of 2008 were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC, but many independent oil exploration and production companies were also active on the field. The California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) estimates approximately 20 million recoverable barrels of oil remain in the ground.
The Coal Oil Point seep field (COP) in the Santa Barbara Channel offshore from Goleta, California, is a marine petroleum seep area of about three square kilometres, within the Offshore South Ellwood Oil Field and stretching from the coastline southward more than three kilometers (1.9 mi). Major seeps are located in water depths from 20 to 80 meters. The seep field is among the largest and best studied areas of active marine seepage in the world. These perennial and continuous oil and gas seeps have been active on the northern edge of the Santa Barbara Channel for at least 500,000 years. The combined seeps in the field release about 40 tons of methane per day and about 19 tons of reactive organic gas ; about twice the hydrocarbon air pollution released by all the cars and trucks in Santa Barbara County in 1990. The liquid petroleum produces a slick that is many kilometres long and when degraded by evaporation and weathering, produces tar balls which wash up on the beaches for miles around.
Lake Guanoco is the world's second largest natural tar pit and lies in Venezuela in northern South America.
The McKittrick Tar Pits are a series of natural asphalt lakes situated in the western part of Kern County in southern California. The pits are the most extensive asphalt lakes in the state.
The Carpinteria Tar Pits are a series of natural asphalt lakes situated in the southern part of Santa Barbara County in southern California, US.
The Binagadi asphalt lake are a cluster of tar pits in urban Baku, Azerbaijan. Asphaltum or tar has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water. Over many centuries, animals that were trapped in the tar were preserved as bones.
Pyrobitumen is a type of solid, amorphous organic matter. Pyrobitumen is mostly insoluble in carbon disulfide and other organic solvents as a result of molecular cross-linking, which renders previously soluble organic matter insoluble. Not all solid bitumens are pyrobitumens, in that some solid bitumens are soluble in common organic solvents, including CS
2, dichloromethane, and benzene-methanol mixtures.
The California oil and gas industry has been a major economic and cultural component of the US state of California for over a century. Oil production was a minor factor in the 19th century, with kerosene replacing whale oil and lubricants becoming essential to the machine age. Oil became a major California industry in the 20th century with the discovery on new fields around Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley, and the dramatic increase in demand for gasoline to fuel automobiles and trucks. In 1900 California pumped 4 million barrels (640,000 m3), nearly 5% of the national supply. Then came a series of major discoveries, and the state pumped 100 million bbl (16 million m3) in 1914, or 38% of the national supply. In 2012 California produced 197 million bbl (31 million m3) of crude oil, out of the total 2,375 million bbl (378 million m3) of oil produced in the US, representing 8.3% of national production. California drilling operations and oil production are concentrated primarily in Kern County, San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles basin.
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