comments on criticisms of "anticlinal theory^' 177 



Criticisms of the "Anticlinal Theory'' 



In this connection it will not be irrelevant to speak of some criticisms 

 of the "Anticlinal" or structural theory of oil and gas accumulation 

 into pools of commercial value. Your speaker has always attributed 

 the chief and controlling factor of oil and gas accumulation to the 

 action of gravity, For several years many able geologists have endeavored 

 to prove that some other force, like capillarity, for instance, has been 

 prepotent in the accumulation of oil and gas, and that gravity operating 

 through structure has had little or nothing to do with the matter. It 

 has always been observed, however, that when these critics of the "Anti- 

 clinal Theory" go into the field to search out possible oil and gas territory 

 upon which they would advise their clients to spend money in a search for 

 these fugitive minerals, they invariably select the most prominent anti- 

 clinals and domes they can find within the regions considered worthy 

 of exploration. 



In the Journal of Geology, volume 27, 1919, pages 352-262, Mr. A. W. 

 McCoy, under the title of "Notes on principles of oil accumulation," 

 attempts to show from small laborator}^ experiments that the main 

 potent factors operating to accumulate oil and gas into pools of com- 

 mercial value are those due to capillary forces, and that the sole effect 

 of "anticlinal structure" on such accumulation is the development of 

 faults, fractures, or minute fissures parallel to the anticlinals, through 

 which alone oil and gas can pass to higher levels, thus relegating gravity 

 or the buoyancy of oil and gas to the scrap-heap of exploded theories, so 

 far as playing any effective part in the accumulation of oil and gas 

 pools is concerned. 



However, some inquiring minds were not satisfied with the character 

 of Mr. McCoy's experiments and regarded them as inconclusive. Among 

 this number was Mr. E. Van A. Mills, of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, 

 that great government institution which, along with the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, has done so much for the oil and gas industry, and to 

 the successful founding of which a distinguished Fellow of this Society, 

 the late Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, yielded up his useful life, quite as great 

 a hero as any who fell on "Flanders Fields." Mr. Mills has given in 

 Economic Geology, volume XV, number 5, July-August, 1920, pages 

 398 to 421, under the title of "Experimental studies of subsurface 

 relationships in oil and gas fields," a preliminary announcement of the 

 results of his elaborate experiments, with adequate equipment and 

 simulating as closely as possible the subsurface conditions to be found 



XII— Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 32, 1920 



