Dr. Christopher Kendall, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of geological sciences, University of South Carolina, visited our department Oct. 30-31. He delivered the Susan Caroline Ferguson Memorial Lecture.

“The Caspian oil Province, a continuing loadstone to the west’s Imperial interest in hydrocarbons.”

From the 1850’s to 1905, Baku was a major world source of paraffin. The Bolshevik revolution and the loss of Baku as a Russian source, demands of naval shipping and the advent of the motor car caused western oil exploitation to extend to the Middle East. First, before First World War, hydrocarbons were explored for in Iran by British. Then, following this war, the Ottoman Empire was broken up; the British grabbed an Ottoman province (the Mosul Velayat) and extended exploration to Iraq.  Initially the British and French were allied here alone but then the US became a co-equal partner.  Then the US, in connivance with an Armenian gentleman of Turkish extraction named Gulbenkian, broke from this partnership and acquired the Saudi Arabian oil concessions.  There followed an increase in the military and civilian needs of the Western Allies for cheap Middle Eastern Oil.  This exacerbated the uneasy relationship between West and East, which often escalating to armed internecine conflict within the Middle East countries as the rush to acquire Western control of the immense “cheap” oil reserves continued.  The fact that the world now consumes 85 million barrels (plus) of oil a day means these confrontations continue today between the Nations within who’s boarders the reserves lie and the west.  Currently Russia controls the outlets to the west of Central Asian Hydrocarbons and Western European and the US are now trying to bypass the Russian’s grip. This has led to an ever ongoing deterioration in the western relationship with Russia.

“Holocene Cyanobacterial Mats and Lime Muds: Links to Middle
East Carbonate Source Rock Potential”.

Carbonate reservoirs ranging in age from Permian to Tertiary contain most of the 675 Bbbl of Arabian Gulf hydrocarbon reserves. Two major Holocene organic sources serve as probable models: whitings that turn part of the Arabian Gulf milky white; and cyanobacteria forming mats on intertidal areas. The mud and cyanobacteria is quickly sequestered into the sedimentary section in the axial trough of the Gulf and extensive tidal flats that rim it. Short-lived isotopes in the Bahama banks support the instantaneous character of whiting precipitation. Source rock analysis of the Gulf carbonate mud/cyanobacterial deposits demonstrates that these sediments are future source beds for hydrocarbons. 25% of the 1.3 million metric tons precipitated and suspended each year in the Bahamas is organic matter, dropping to 1.8% of the surface sediment. The Bahamian Bank whitings and associated organic matter covering more limited areas is swept off the bank into deep water. Cores through Neogene western platform slope sediments preserve 1% TOC up to 4%. Cyanobacteria may contribute more hydrocarbons than previously thought. Organic matter associated with whiting blooms is believed to be dispersed in the lime muds of the ancient Arabian Gulf section and may have generated large volumes of its oil. Cyanobacterial membranes liquefy at low threshold temperatures. A short time interval burst of oil generation could produce transient overpressures liberating oil by micro fracturing and in some cases long-range migration. Rapid accumulation of large volumes of oil in a short time-span would provide the collective buoyancy necessary to drive large-scale migration. We propose that whitings of the modern Arabian Gulf are the key to the origin of the vast petroleum reserves of this region.

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Mr. Gerald Gould, SLU ‘82
Gould Groundwater Investigations, Inc.
Career Opportunities in Hydrogeology
Gerald Gould