BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

 Vol. 28, pp. 727-734 SEPTEMBER 30, 1917 



LATE THEOEIES EEGAEDING THE ORIGIN OF OIL ^ 



BY DAVID WHITE 



(Presented before the Society December 28, 1916) 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction 727 



Former theories of origin 727 



Modern theory of origin 728 



Distillation versus bacterial origin 729 



Influence of chemical processes 732 



Effects of progressive regional alteration 733 



Richardson's hypothesis 734 



Conclusion , 734 



Introduction 



Investigations as to the origin of petroleum liave of late been charac- 

 terized by the search for evidence bearing on the validity of old hypoth- 

 eses more than by the proposal of new ones. In fact, the past five years — 

 the period within which a theory may have retained its newness — have 

 been marked by improvements of the old inventions rather than by dis- 

 coveries and original patents. Mainly these improvements are the out- 

 growths of observations of the characteristics of the oil-bearing strata 

 and their conditions of deposition; of the geologic structures in which 

 oil pools are found, and, in particular, of the mutual relations of oil, gas, 

 and water, and their reactions with one another; and finally, and most 

 important, of capillarity, porosity, and solution. These more imme- 

 diately profitable fields of inquiry have already been discussed. 



Former Theories of Origin 



The fissure separating the followers of the inorganic origin of petro- 

 leum from the organic remains open; but there are now comparatively 

 few remaining on the side of origin from metallic carbides, Sokoloff's 



1 This paper is one of a series composing a "Symposium on the Geology of Petroleum." 

 See this volume, p. 156. 



Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Society March 26, 1917. 



(727) 



