Drilling For Oil!

I have always thought that the process of discovering oil was simple, with nothing too complicated, or too expensive. However, after today's class, I was proven wrong. In today's class, we were taught about one of the earth's most common resources, which is oil. Oil is formed from the remaints of plants and animals that lived from 10 to 160 million years ago. The remains are buried under mud, sand and other minerals, which prevented immediate decay. However, since the remaints were buried in layers and layers in the mud and sand, the lack of oxygen caused the remaints to decay into carbon-rich compounds. After mixing with several sediments and more pressure and layers are added, these remaints turn into oil. The experiment we performed today, was an example of how scientists would drill for oil. We were given 3 maps to trace, with the three components that we needed for oil to be present.

1. Source - Sediment the needs to be heated up and buried, in order to create oil.
2. Reservoir - A place underground used to store the oil
3. Trap - The layer of rock that lies about the reservoir to keep in the oil.

After we traced the outline for those three of the components, we had a map, and we had marked places in which we believed we would find oil. At our lab groups, there was a big tray, and we had a drill pick, in which we used to poke into the tin foil, that covered the tray. For each drill, we would have to pay $225,000, and for each centimeter we drilled, we had to add $100,000.
This experiment showed me that oil is very hard to find, and something very expensive to find, also. This also tells me that I should conserve energy, because of how complicated it is to find oil, and how much money is spent, just to find this resource.

To learn about the oil reserves, click here