Oceanography

The World’s Oxymoron: Collapse Before Construction

By: Daniel Bogan

Crude oil has become the gold of our generation. Consuming over 125 billion gallons in 2010 alone, the oil rush is undeniable and serves as the basis of thousands of daily operations.(1) Investors have taken notice and oil tycoon’s unrelenting production of crude leads us to today’s debacle. This combination has led us to a down spiral over the last several years, but when exactly did the decline begin? To answer this, we must delve into the facts of what crude oil is, how it is formed and why its depletion is coming at such an alarming rate.

Natural oil seeps have been ever present in our world even before the dinosaurs, roughly 200 million years ago.(2) This natural oil has been available for human consumption ever since the first record of humans. In 347 A.D., the first functional oil well was constructed in China with the aid of bits and bamboo poles.(2) However, the production of oil as we know it today is much more recent. Starting in 1815, the United States produced oil as an undesired by-product of oil wells, but that didn’t slow Asia’s search for its production and retrieval. In 1848, their quest was completed when the first modern oil well was constructed on the Aspheron Peninsula. Following this invention, England took suit and erected its first drilling rig in 1854.(2) With all this production, however, we are served with the question of where this liquid is derived from.

Surprisingly, no conclusive evidence has been produced to assure the evolution of crude oil. Although scientists alike have not accepted it as fact, two theories have been created in an attempt to serve an explanation of the matter. The most widely accepted theory, the biogenic theory, describes an Earth filled with photosynthetic plants that capture sunlight solar energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and carbohydrates. Upon the plants death, the sediments...